Aiden Lutjen, contributor

Queer rights and communities are once again under attack by conservatives. I find it hard to give a passive-aggressive or maybe even make some jokingly sarcastic comments for the introduction to this topic.

Chaya Raichik is the owner and creator of the TikTok, Twitter and Instagram account known as Libs of TikTok. Libs of TikTok’s primary focus is reposting videos with mostly LGBTQ elements to promote harassment and discrimination against LGBTQ people. For the entirety of its existence since its creation in 2021, it has done nothing but bully, harass, abuse and outright doxx LGBTQ people for the crime of… existing. The crime of breathing. The crime of being alive. The crime of not conforming to cisheteronormative expectations that conservative religious bigots push onto anyone and everyone. And yes, bomb threats are now a scarily regular thing for anyone who shows support for LGBTQ individuals. And that includes children’s hospitals and elementary schools. How heartwarming to “protect the children” via… threatening to kill said children? Yeah, because that definitely makes sense. But since when do conservatives’ methods with children make sense?

To clarify: no, Chaya Raichik herself is not sending bomb threats (that we know of), but her cult of an audience is and she has said and done a grand total of nothing to even hint at discouraging it. What a lovely woman. As of right now, Libs of TikTok posts (or “tips” as Raichik calls them) have shown to be the precursors to bomb threats towards schools or school districts at least 11 separate times. And what exactly warrants these threats? A pride flag. Or a transgender teacher. Or a book with even just a mention of LGBTQ people being in a classroom. Raichik apparently doesn’t feel responsible at all, and insists that these bomb threats have absolutely nothing to do with her, her account or her audience. Another attempt at keeping up the smokescreen of “protecting the children” despite doing literally anything but protecting kids.

What makes this so much more horrifying is how much support this shameless queerphobe has from government bodies, officials and news sources. Many consistently praise her and her posts for “exposing the left” and LGBTQ peoples “grooming of children” – don’t even get me started on how utterly disgusting it is that these people have abused and deformed the term “grooming” to mean something completely different. Stop using words you don’t know the meaning of, it’s embarrassing for you and hurts actual victims of grooming. Raichik also has fans spanning far and wide! From your average conservative with a major lack of boundaries with their children, to transphobic, drag-hating lawmakers, to literal white supremacists and Neo-Nazis, there’s no shortage of disappointments in Libs of TikTok’s followers list! I encourage you to not go through said list or the comments of any posts, however, and to simply block and report the account before you’re subjected to any of its ranting and ravings.

Libs of TikTok isn’t protecting children. It’s actively hurting them. And the creator and audience of the accounts couldn’t be more pleased with that. Us LGBTQ people are so, so tired, but the hatred for our existence just doesn’t stop, does it?