Gay State Lawmaker Receives Second Bomb Threat After Passing Bill to Protect Trans Youth

Scott Wiener, an openly gay state lawmaker who introduced California’s law offering sanctuary to transgender youth from other states, has received yet another bomb threat, resulting in his home searched by police for the second time in six months. The death threat against Wiener, targeting his home and his office, was sent on Tuesday to the outlet the San Francisco Standard. The paper says it reported the threat to police, who then searched Wiener’s home.

In a statement Wiener shared on Tuesday, he said the emailed threat listed his home address, said “we will fucking kill you” and called him a “pedophile and groomer.” In recent months, the right has made those latter terms their go-to labels from LGBTQ people and advocates in an effort to spread the bigoted lie that queer and trans adults are all child molesters. This is, of course, despite how prominent, straight right-wingers keep getting exposed—again and again—for sexual misconduct inflicted on minors.

In June, Wiener previously received a bomb threat to his home and Capitol office that also called him a “groomer” and “pedophile” and stated “we will kill you.” The latest threat used the name Zamina Tataro, which Vice notes is the same name attached to anti-LGBTQ threats against Boston Children’s Hospital for providing gender-affirming care and a Canadian high school for employing a trans teacher.

“This latest wave of death threats against me relates to my work to end discrimination in the criminal justice system and my work to ensure the safety of transgender children and their families,” Wiener wrote. He also noted that the threats against him extend from the rise in “extreme homophobic and transphobic rhetoric,” online and from “right wing media outlets,” to “real world impacts.”

“People are dying as a result. It leads to harassment, stalking, threats, and violence against our community,” Wiener said. “Responsible political leaders on the right must call it out and stop tolerating it.”

In his statement, Wiener specifically named Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Charlie Kirk, a conservative talking head and executive director of the right-wing group Turning Point USA, as both have wielded their sizable online platforms to direct slurs and hate at him. “[Greene] and [Kirk] recently tweeted homophobic lies about me, falsely accusing me of supporting pedophiles and child ‘mutilation,’” he wrote.

Last month, Greene quote-tweeted a tweet from Wiener in which he pointed out that “groomer” has been co-opted as “an anti-LGBTQ hate word,” and called Wiener a “communist groomer.” Her tweet came at roughly the same time that a man shot and killed five at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado during a drag event.

The real-life threats aimed at Wiener present a twisted reminder that violent language about LGBTQ people leads to violent outcomes. In addition to the Colorado nightclub shooting, and credible bomb threats against Wiener and Boston Children’s Hospital, organized anti-LGBTQ attacks have been on the rise in general. Just this weekend, right-wing protests targeted drag events in four different states, including a protest in Columbus, Ohio, in which the far-right Proud Boys shut down a local drag queen story hour event. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, there were nearly 10 times as many anti-LGBTQ demonstrations in 2021 than in 2020, and 2022 is set to surpass 2021.