Dad says stranger spewed anti-LGBTQ hate at his young children while trapped on a train
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As most LGBTQ+ people know, we can face queerphobia pretty much anywhere and from anyone. This is especially true if you live with multiple marginalized identities or are visibly “different” in some way. Sadly, likely due to increased hysteria and hatred from the right, it seems people are not only unleashing vitriol toward adults but on children.
For example, Twitter user Robbie Pierce tweeted a heartbreaking thread on Wednesday, April 13 detailing what he says occurred while he, his husband, and their two children were riding the Amtrak for a trip. Pierce said a stranger approached the family and shouted to their small children that Pierce and his husband were “pedophiles” who “stole” them and accused them of being “rapists” and an “abomination.” According to Pierce, this all unfolded in front of his children, who, unsurprisingly, began crying.
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The full thread is ten posts long, and you can click through this first one to read the entire thing on Twitter.
In his thread, Pierce said it was no longer an “absurd, abstract” attack from a disembodied voice on the internet, but a real horror his children were forced to deal with. Pierce says he handled the situation by removing his children while his husband shouted at the stranger to leave them alone.
According to Pierce, a conductor eventually handled the situation, and the man was arrested after refusing to exit the train. Though Pierce’s thread has gone viral, and he spoke to The Daily Dot in an interview, his claims have not been independently verified.
Pierce told the outlet his children, who are five and six years old, woke up in tears several times the night after the confrontation. “We just talked to them and held them and slept with the light on,” Pierce told the outlet, adding that they know there is “nothing scary” about their family. He also shared he’s faced homophobic attacks before, but the accusations of pedophilia and rape are new to them. Pierce also noted his family lives in Los Angeles, California, so they feel it’s possible they’ve been somewhat sheltered from attacks like this one.
In his thread, Pierce thanks Fox, Rupert Murdoch, J. K. Rowling, and Qanon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for stirring up their “lucrative culture war,” in addition to “everyone else who harms kids” and thinks it’s “politically expedient” to project hate onto families like his.
While we obviously are missing some details for this particular story, it’s safe to say rhetoric from conservatives is downright dangerous. We’ve seen teachers attacked over mask mandates, AAPI folks attacked for simply existing, and we see police brutality against people of color—and especially Black men—on a disturbingly regular basis. And yet Republicans have no problem spewing anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant white supremacy if it means they get a few more votes.
Republicans like to defend their anti-choice stance by saying they’re protecting the vulnerable, but they actually love to attack the vulnerable if it allows them to distract their voter base from the real issues and their failures to lead.