Proud Boys Could Crash NJ Event Supporting Trans Identities, Abortion Rights

FRANKLIN, NJ — An event spearheaded by two candidates for public office may attract some uninvited political extremists. Online communications involving New Jersey's chapter of the far-right, white-nationalist Proud Boys encouraged the disruption of The Roe Show, which will benefit a local Planned Parenthood center and celebrate racial and gender diversity.

The six-hour "FemFest" will feature live music on Saturday at Muckraker Beermaker in Franklin, Sussex County. Damaris Lira and Camila DiResta — the Democratic candidates for the Sussex County Board of Commissioners — say they've hosted several similar events that have been peaceful.

The candidates know they have little chance of winning in Republican-heavy Sussex County. But their goal has been to "find our community and make a safe place" for residents in need, Lira told Patch.

Their campaign has promoted diversity in a county that's 92.6 percent white. According to an event flyer, The Roe Show is "part of a series celebrating femmes, trans, GNC (gender noncomforming), BIPOC (Black and Indigenous people and people of color), non-binary, women and allies." Proceeds support Planned Parenthood's Newton Health Center.

While Lira and DiResta are listed as event hosts, The Roe Show is a concert and not a political rally.

Several online posts suggest that Proud Boys and other extremists may crash the event.

"YOU DON'T SHUT THIS DOWN WE WILL SHOW UP," says one graphic with the Proud Boys logo. Another post says "We don't abide by GROOMERS!! Or BABY MURDERERS!!" — epithets that have been commonly used to falsely label LGBTQ+ individuals as dangerous to children and pro-abortion individuals as supporters of infanticide.

While the rhetoric has worried DiResta, Lira said that she's facing the situation with laughter.

"I’m a brown, mouthy Afro-Latina that lives in Sussex County," Lira said. "I can’t live in fear. I kind of just chuckled at it."

One of the flyers against the event leaves phone numbers for the brewery owner (Muckraker's phone number) and Lira's and DiResta's campaign. Both numbers are publicly available. But neither the campaign nor the venue received any calls from protesters as of Thursday morning, Lira told Patch.

Lira felt confident that the event will remain safe, since Franklin Borough's police station is up the street. Event organizers hadn't been in touch with police about the situation. But law enforcement at the local, county and state levels are aware of the event, according to Gregory R. Meuller, Sussex County's acting first assistant prosecutor.

"Law enforcement is committed to the safety of the event organizers and participants," Mueller told Patch. "We recognize that there may be protesters. That activity must be peaceful."

The event comes amid national trends of escalating threats and violence against transgender individuals, medical facilities providing gender-affirming care and reproductive health care providers.

Anti-transgender hate crimes increased 41 percent from 2019 to 2020, according to FBI data. The Human Rights Campaign — an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization — tracked a record number of violent incidents against trans people in 2021, with 50 known killings. The organization has already reported at least 32 transgender people killed in 2022.

Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender individuals to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault, according to a study from the UCLA School of Law.

Several hospitals around the United States that provide gender-affirming care to children have received threats in recent months. Boston Children's Hospital received several threats, including a hoax bomb call in August, after social media influencers spread false information that the hospital that the facility offered "gender-affirming hysterectomies" to youth.

The U.S. Department of Justice has represented 11 cases from 2021-22 involving violence and other conduct directed at reproductive health care providers. The DOJ involved itself in only 12 of such cases from 2011-20.

The Proud Boys have been designated as a terrorist group in Canada and New Zealand. The Anti-Defamation League has described the group as "overtly Islamophobic and misogynistic," "transphobic and anti-immigration," and "all too willing to embrace racists, antisemites and bigots of all kinds."

Five leaders of the group, including its former chairman, were indicted for seditious conspiracy last June for their roles in the Capitol riot that occurred Jan. 6, 2021, according to federal authorities. Their trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 12.

Despite the risks in the modern political climate, Lira says she isn't willing to take hatred quietly anymore.

"I grew up being the only brown person in the room for most of my life," Lira said. "I’ve been the only woman in the room and the only bilingual person in the room for most of my life. And I’ve been in a lot of situations where people say really awful things. And because I’m a minority, I couldn’t say anything. But I’m just not that person anymore. So, people don’t like that. They like when we’re quiet and don’t talk back."