Right-wing lobbyists behind Project 2025 have petitioned the FBI to brand “trans ideology” a terror threat in the US.
The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, called on the government agency to add what it called “Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism” to its list of domestic extremist groups in an effort to “detect, disrupt, and dismantle” groups it considered a threat.
In its petition, the organisation cited the death of right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk as an example of what it is calling “TIVE extremism,” despite there being no definitive evidence that Kirk’s death was related to trans people or issues.
Kirk, 31, was shot in the neck during a debate on gun violence at Utah Valley University. The suspected shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, has been charged with aggravated murder and could face the death penalty.
The Heritage Foundation and its spin-off group, the Oversight Project, claimed that several “horrific acts of political violence” were committed in the name of trans rights, failing to offer evidence for this claim.
It further claimed, with little evidence, that Christians were primarily targeted by so-called ‘trans extremists’.
Recent data actually suggests that the majority of domestic extremist murders in the US are committed by those holding right-wing and white supremacist views. Of the 29 murders carried out by domestic extremists in 2021, just three were committed by those who were not right-wing.
Furthermore, of the 3,708 mass shooting incidents in the US committed since 2015, it’s estimated that just 16 were transgender.
Despite this, the Heritage Foundation called on the federal government to “use the full weight of federal law enforcement to crush this threat and keep Americans safe.”
The call comes after Texas Republican and former White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, was condemned for an immensely transphobic tirade in which he called for trans people to be removed from public life.
During a Newsmax broadcast, the Texan falsely claimed trans people have an “underlying level of aggressiveness” and called for every trans person to be institutionalised and taken “off the streets.”
His comments were branded “disgusting” by the Human Rights Campaign, which told him to keep his “malevolent thoughts about transgender people to himself.”
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