Southern Queer Newsroom
Every presidential administration comes into office with a different set of priorities that the counterterrorism agencies in the federal government (like the FBI and many Homeland Security agencies) should act on. While work against Islamic extremists has been consistent since at least the early 2000s, other priorities come and go with certain parties.
During the Biden administration, the focus was largely on far-right militias and undermining the conditions that allow racial and ethnic bigotry to flourish; anarchists opposed to capitalism were (and remain) categorized next to those militias under the designation "anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists," but the Biden strategy assesses that racist militias "present the most lethal [domestic violent extremist] threats," (p. 10). The strategy also says that domestic terrorism on all sides of the political spectrum are to be opposed (p. 13).
By constrast, the Trump administration's new strategy completely disregards the violent threats far-right militias like Patriot Front or neo-Confederate groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans pose to marginalized groups and instead focuses on three targets: "Narcoterrorists and Transnational Gangs," "Legacy Islamist Terrorists," and "Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists" (p. 5). The whole document rings of sensational fearmongering of an insidious threat that needs to be counteracted by an overpowering counterterrorism response, and trafficks in complaints over the Biden administration going after criminal elements in the far right that have aligned themselves to Trump. The ideology is far more blatant in this strategy than in the past.
Even in the first Trump strategy from 2018, left-wing extremism is barely mentioned through references to "animal rights extremism [and] environmental extremism" (p. 10), while much more is made of both Islamist organizations like Hezbollah (spelled 'Hisballah' for some reason) and Nazi groups like the Nordic Resistance Movement. This strategy was released after the Unite the Right rally which saw neo-Confederates, Klansmen, and neo-Nazis clash with antifascist protestors from Redneck Revolt, DSA, IWW, and autonomous anarchist groups; one counter-protestor, Heather Heyer, was murdered by a white supremacist with his car, in an attack that injured dozens of other antifascists. Trump was still clearly taking the side of the fascists but his focus on attacking antifascists did not fully develop until the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020. Now, with state power again, he is going after political enemies with more force than before.
The focus on antifascists opposing Trump's administration and the criminal DHS actions is of major concern, and even before this strategy was released, the winds had been bringing the storm in for some time. In 2022 and 2023, antifascists opposed to Cop City in Atlanta were major targets of police action and frequently labeled domestic terrorists both in press releases and in the state in the courts. Georgia State Patrol killed one forest defender, Tortuguita, in January 2023, and several people are still facing bail charity or domestic terrorism charges that have not been pursued for years. Ever since October 2023, after a mass killing of civilians by Hamas and the Israeli government's gleeful destruction of thousands of lives and invocations of ethnic cleansing, domestic anti-Zionist protestors have been called terrorists, doxed, banned from work, and kidnapped by DHS.
Even before Trump, the old antiracist skinhead ways of opposing neo-Nazis in their communities became terrorism after the entrenchment of the security state through DHS and the USA PATRIOT Act in the early 2000s, and anarchists were the main target of American counterterrorism in the aftermath of the Haymarket affair in 1886. Opposition to fascism and state violence has never stopped being considered radical and dangerous, but this time the masks are coming off.
Something that has stood out to several trans journalists like Mady Castigan of Trans News Network is that "radically pro-transgender" violent extremist groups are specifically listed alongside anarchist groups and movements like Antifa as priority targets (p. 6). This is not the first time in Trump's administration that the derangement over the modern civil rights movement for trans Americans has influenced security policy. After the Annunciation Church school shooting, conservatives wanted to ban trans people from owning weapons; after Charlie Kirk was killed, there was a push to classify trans supects as "nihilistic violent extremists," and the Heritage Foundation proposed creating a separate category of terrorism called "Trans-Ideology Inspired Violent Extremism."
Tracking the past several years of reactionary politics, it's not surprising that we got here. Storm clouds had been growing on the horizon for years, and this memo serves as a reminder of how much closer the storm has gotten. Reactionaries, sometimes with the help of liberals, have whipped up a culture war frenzy over the equal rights trans people are entitled to as human beings and stripped those rights from vast swaths of the population. Outside of the government, the Catholic Church banned gender-affirming care from being performed at healthcare institutions they own, which has had disastrous consequences for trans people even in supposedly safe states. In short, it got worse like many knew it would.
So what does this all mean? In short, repression is going to get worse, not just against trans people but anyone who considers themselves opposed to fascism and working for a freer, fairer world. Security culture, conflict resolution, and mutual aid will likely have to become more prevalent as the guardrails continue failing and democracy backslides even further. But even in this anxious moment, many in the movement are showing no signs of giving up.
The queer community got itself through the Lavender Scare, the worst of the AIDS crisis, and the gaybashing days. While those are far from over, especially now that HIV/AIDS may be tearing through populations now lacking USAID assistance, trans people are still here. No law is going to change that reality.