Randy in a post asked the question I think many ask here. Why do I champion the trans community so forcefully? Nan asked me a few years ago if I was feeling like I was trans, and no I am a cis gay male and happy in it. Although if not for my past I would have liked to be free to explore a more feminine side of myself. Ron and I do have trans people in our family but I have never met them. The truth is in the page why I do this. I want to give a voice to those that have no voice and right now the most targeted unfairly groups are trans people / kids and brown skinned people ICE is going after. Why do I put so much effort in to giving them a voice? Because as an abused little boy people in my town knew I was being abuse but no one gave me a voice, no one spoke up for me. Hugs.
How Americans are manipulated by online misinformation and political rhetoric.
Joseph McConville’s first memory of being online was at 13 years old when he started playing Neopets, a virtual pet game, at his home in Boynton Beach, Fla. At the time, he had no clue that just months later, the internet would suck him into the alt-right.
As a young, white man, McConville says he was taught to believe that he’d have everything he wanted.
He started to realize this dream wouldn’t come to fruition when he was pulled out of private school as his parents struggled during the 2008 recession.
McConville quickly graduated from kids games to popular social media sites like Myspace and Facebook. But it was when he found FunnyJunk.com in ninth grade that he started being exposed to alt-right content.
The website gave users the ability to upload memes and upvote popular content. When McConville began using it, he was initially exposed to dark humor and edgy right-wing memes.
He then migrated to 4chan, a website known for hosting anonymous, fringe, right-wing communities, where he started engaging with content used to stoke extremist meaning —pushing us vs. them narratives that alienated McConville from his multicultural South Florida community.
“Everyone else is wrong. … These guys are right. These guys get it,” says McConville. The deeper he got, the more anger he felt—especially towards transgender people.
“It’s all a psyop … there’s a big trans psyop to destroy manhood,” McConville remembers believing for nearly a decade. “It’s all about making men hate themselves, to become women, to weaken the American hegemony.”
McConville, now 30, eventually found his way out of the alt-right world around 2018 when he was deradicalized by a friend who had previously been a part of the community.
But since then, the pervasiveness of this thinking has grown. What was once conspiratorial thinking on fringe websites has now become commonplace. “The [2016] Trump election changed a lot of things, it all became serious,” McConville told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “You feel like, ‘Wow, we’re actually being listened to—we’re changing the mainstream talking points.’”
Transgender Americans have been one of the biggest targets of this alt-right rhetoric, and it’s effective. Since 2022, Americans have increased their favorability towards laws limiting protections for trans people and have become less favorable towards policies safeguarding them.
The site of Charlie Kirk’s assassination after it took place. (KSL News Utah)
This change in public perception may be because of the growing claims that falsely link transgender people as perpetrators of mass violence and domestic terrorism. After Charlie Kirk’s death in September, these narratives reached a boiling point.
But how did Americans get taken to believe this anti-LGBTQ lie? And what does it say about how people can be brainwashed to hate?
Who’s Pushing the False Link Between Trans People and Domestic Terrorism?
One reason many Americans began to believe that trans people are more likely to be linked to terrorism is because trusted sources in mainstream conservative spaces are telling them it’s true. Even though the overwhelming majority of mass shooters are cisgender men, the Heritage Foundation, notably behind Project 2025, recommended the FBI create a category of domestic terrorism called Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism, which suggests transgender people pose an imminent threat.
“I think some people know that this is false, but push it,” Thekla Morgenroth, a professor of psychology at Purdue University, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “It’s worth giving false information if you get people on your side and support your opinion, and I think that is malicious.”
Unlike when McConville was in the alt-right, many of the people behind the rhetoric today hold powerful positions in the government. After a shooting in August at a Minnesota Catholic school perpetrated by a transgender person, Rep. Lauren Boebert falsely said there was a “pattern of transgender violence in our country.” Trump officials and other members of Congress used this as an excuse to attack gender-affirming care. And Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, has insisted that hormone replacement therapy played a role in the shooting, although officials do not believe the perpetrator was using hormones.
This narrative has bled into the mainstream media who are used to trusting government sources. Just a few hours after Kirk was pronounced dead, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets picked up claims from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the bullet case engravings pointed to a motive related to “transgender ideology,” a term coined by transphobic commentators. The bullet casings ultimately did not have any reference to transgender people.
Nevertheless, suspicions around this shooter being connected to the transgender community spread like wildfire.
Megyn Kelly in her video. (Megyn Kelly on YouTube)
Former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly posted a video titled “Megyn Kelly Reveals the Truth About the ‘Trans’ Phrases Found on Ammo of Gun Which Shot Charlie Kirk,” to YouTube on Sept. 11, 2025, where she falsely told over 4 million subscribers, “There’s a particularly high percentage [of transgender people] committing crimes these days and it is responsible and important to say so.” The video now has 2.1 million views and Kelly has not retracted these comments.
Her followers—who believed her false claims—began calling for extreme action in the video’s comment section. @WonkoTheDork wrote, “Trans insanity needs to end. I don’t care how, this has to stop.” And @kathleenbarton-m6c wrote, “As an American, I completely agree that this [Trans] movement needs to be completely eradicated.”
Referencing Kirk as a martyr, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took it a step further, writing in a press release that “corrupted ideologies like transgenderism and Antifa are a cancer on our culture and have unleashed their deranged and drugged-up foot soldiers on the American people.”
The Social Psychology of Transphobia
Morgenroth thinks many people who endorse rhetoric around transgender domestic terrorism are threatened or afraid of otherness and of the breaking of traditional gender norms.
“People are very attached to the way that they think about gender because it gives them a sense of certainty—it gives them a sense of who they are and who they’re not,” they say.
Morgenroth says people come up with justifications for their discomfort, even if they don’t make sense.
“‘Here’s an explanation for why I should be scared. I’m gonna endorse that and I’m gonna believe that regardless of whether that makes logical sense or not,’” they told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I think that’s what’s happening and why people are so willing to endorse these conspiracy beliefs or theories about trans people.”
Joseph Vandello, a psychology professor at the University of South Florida, says that when influential figures ramp up a threat, it triggers an emotional response of fear or anger, which leads to a desire to punish or exclude people.
“This is the same playbook that people were using against gay people going back to the 1970s or against other kinds of marginalized or minority groups like Jews,” Vandello told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES, referencing the gay panic of that era. “I think there’s this idea that if you frame the issue in terms of a threat, then it becomes an issue of moral protection of the community.”
Another One Down the Rabbit Hole
Vandello says many young men fall for anti-trans narratives because they confirm their place of privilege in the world and validate their insecurities. He coined the term “precarious manhood,” which is the idea that manhood is a social status that has to be won and can be lost. His research indicates that threats to one’s sense of manhood—like trans and queer identities—provoke not only insecurity, but aggression.
Jordan Peterson (right) being interviewed by Sean Hannity in 2025. (Fox News)
Ten years ago, Justin Brown-Ramsey became a case study of precarious manhood, lashing out when he began thinking that trans people were a threat. At 18 years old, and in search of an escape from his parents’ divorce, he started binge-watching YouTube lectures from Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist who’s best known as an outspoken anti-trans thought leader and has said that using someone’s preferred pronouns is the road to authoritarianism.
“He has a degree, he’s working at an institution, it seems like if that’s the kind of guy that has this opinion, I should probably also have that opinion,” Brown-Ramsey told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
This intellectualized version of transphobia appealed to the sense of insecurity Brown-Ramsey faced growing up in a household with strictly enforced gender roles.
Eventually, Brown-Ramsey became an active participant in anti-trans rhetoric. As an anonymous keyboard warrior, he’d fight in the YouTube comments against the #MeToo, feminist and trans rights movements.
Near the end of his senior year of high school, Brown-Ramsey brought this hatred into the real world against another classmate.
“They mentioned they were trans, and I recall always taking issue with that for seemingly no reason, and being just generally antagonistic about that,” says Brown-Ramsey, now 28.
He purposefully misgendered the student in class and started lashing out against friends, family and romantic partners until he was almost totally isolated.
“I think over time, the less acceptable my behavior was for people in person, the more it became acceptable to lean into the online version of that,” he says. “It went from those lecture videos to watching long rant videos about trans people and gay people, or seeking out stuff that was more 4chan-adjacent.”
Brown-Ramsey, who eventually left the alt-right after deeply engaging with U.S. history in college, believes he was manipulated to hate trans people because it helped him displace his anger about other elements of his life. “I think it was the fact that I was lower working class or lower middle class, and didn’t have an economic future ahead of me,” he says. “I was like, ‘Well if the world is that way then I just might as well be hateful and try to be more powerful than somebody.’”
Undercover in the Alt-Right
Anthony Siteman (Photo courtesy of Siteman, design by Sam Donndelinger)
This phenomenon of young men getting drawn in by alt-right algorithms fascinated 21-year-old Anthony Siteman, who started investigating online extremism ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“My main goal was to understand how and why people became radicalized,” Siteman, a senior at Quinnipiac University, told Uncloseted Media.
Siteman immersed himself on right-wing sites like Rumble and Gab as well as encrypted messaging apps like Telegram where he joined channels that included Proud Boys. He noticed trends that draw people in: all caps text, red alarm emojis and inflammatory language, which all trigger a sense of urgency and concern.
He saw constant racist, sexist and transphobic language, but also violent videos and memes created from the livestreamed footage of the 2019 mosque shootings in New Zealand that left 51 people dead.
Even though he entered this project to learn about indoctrination, sometimes he felt his own views slipping. “ I was really questioning myself and what I believed,” he says, adding that he had to turn to his professor to keep him grounded. “They make you really question all of reality.”
“Social media companies are feeding people more extreme content, more emotional content,” Vandello says. He explained that emotionality is what has made the online alt-right successful at manipulating users against transgender people.
Siteman agrees: “ It’s always framed about fear, anger, and just some sense of belonging.”
The Way Out
Siteman believes that to exit these spaces, people outside the alt-right should use empathetic communication to help those in their network who have been radicalized.
For Brown-Ramsey, it was a professor that pulled him out.
“Unlike online spaces, where I curated the information that I wanted to see, and the algorithm fed me more of the same bigoted, hateful content, college was perhaps the first time I was required to engage with media outside of my usual diet,” Brown-Ramsey published in an essay about his experience.
Brown-Ramsey had to read books aloud in class like “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” which detailed the abolitionist’s experience being born into slavery. “The narrative turned a mirror onto me and, in upsetting detail, showed me that my inclinations toward antagonizing those who looked, acted, or believed differently than myself [were the same beliefs that] led to Douglass’ dehumanization,” he wrote.
“That trajectory is really just me learning, ‘Why should I be at odds with a trans person if both of us work crappy jobs and can’t pay our bills?’ Obviously, that’s not who I should be angry at, but it took a while to get around to that,” Brown-Ramsey says.
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As our income shrank Ron and I found ourselves cutting back on buying books to read and movies to watch. Then one day I read about how many libraries offer these things for free if you just sign up. I was like what is the catch? But Ron and I went to our local library, got new cards, and told them what we really wanted was the online stuff. The person behind the desk was so excited to explain it to us. They were happy even though we only wanted to online stuff. Ron and I have watched movies, read a bunch of books including new ones, and it doesn’t cost us anything but time. When Ron’s sister’s husband was in the hospital before he died he complained of being bored. She set him up with a local library online account and he was happy while in the hospital. If you have a family member who is a shut in please think of this for them. I love it. Hugs
Why I do these posts. This is three days of Joe My God that got away way from me. So why do I do these long news posts? Because I comb the Joe My God comment section for the best memes and snarkiest comments. It dawned on me I could post his news articles for those that want to read them. But three days is a lot to go throw and it is much easier just to quickly scan and snatch the comments rather than post them. So I need some inputs from everyone. Are these posts worth it? Or would you rather go to Joe My God yourselves. Or I can keep doing these. Up to you. Hugs
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tRumps Grifts / Scams / Ripping off the rubes / tRump’s ego / tRump’s Crimes / tRump’s health / Republican grifts & payouts for supporting tRump / other trump scammers
The Trump Golf Tracker estimates that the president’s golf trips have cost taxpayers some $110,600,000 so far in 2025. But that estimate, which was based on a 2019 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on four golf trips during his first term, doesn’t even take into account the month of December.
The right wing media / the media arms of the GOP & Republican Party / The over the top thuggery and complete disrespect for common decency / Ask if you would like your child to act this way …. because maga does want their kids to be this crass as it makes them feel good / Kennedy Center debacle
The video was shared by Vice President JD Vance. FBI director Kash Patel said he is aware of the video and the FBI is investigating. The YouTuber says he is uncovering new fraud in Minnesota, but media outlets like KSTP reported more than a year ago about more than 62 investigations into Minnesota child care centers.
What this is really about is they are afraid Walz will run for office and win as he is so well liked. They are trying to gin up a fake scandal to Benghazi him like they did with Hillary Clinton. I posted yesterday how fake and full of lies / misinformation the “report” the YouTuber did was. In the article above this one you can see how the Republican Party had a hand in helping the right wing influencer to push a fake story. The state has been investigating these things for several years. Hugs
$175 billion for a “golden dome” that experts doubt would actually work, but only $2 billion in humanitarian aid for the United Nations. It’s what Jesus would want.
Space based weapons are forbidden by treaties that the US signed. That said do we have space based weapons … well I was sending commands somewhere for something when I was in the Army Sat coms / intel unit. You decide. Hugs
Maga hate fail / tRump lost in court / tRump supporters doing what they do not want you to know about / ICE lies / tRump’s DOJ / Misinformation / Trying to change history by spewing & omitting facts or what really happened
The emails, which were made public as part of a newly unsealed judicial order, largely reflected communications about the case that Robert E. McGuire, the acting U.S. attorney in Nashville, had with members of his staff and with Aakash Singh, a top official in Mr. Blanche’s office. They raised serious questions about whether the Justice Department had misled Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., who is overseeing the case, by telling him that local prosecutors had acted alone in charging Mr. Abrego Garcia.
Hate / Bigotry / DEI / White Supremacy / Christian Nationalism / US aid to only white countries or white dominated areas / US Healthcare / For Profit drug prices rip off the US public /
The civil probes are proceeding under the umbrella of the False Claims Act, which has traditionally been used to go after contractors who bill the government for work that was never performed or inflate the cost of services rendered.
The U.S. slashed its aid spending this year, and leading Western donors such as Germany also pared back assistance as they pivoted to increased defense spending, triggering a severe funding crunch for the United Nations.
U.N. data shows total U.S. humanitarian contributions to the U.N. fell to about $3.38 billion in 2025, equating to about 14.8% of the global sum. This was down sharply from $14.1 billion the prior year, and a peak of $17.2 billion in 2022.
The idea behind the legislation originated with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group that has gained prominence for its work to incorporate religion in public spaces.
West last appeared here for his bill that would create a database of abortion patients.
In 2024, we heard from West for his bill to ban Pride flags at public schools and government buildings.
He appeared here in 2023 for his bill that would make it a felony to perform drag in the view of minors. His bill called for a $20,000 fine and up to two years in prison.
West first appeared here in 2021 when Gov. Kevin Stitt signed his bill making it legal to run over protesters.
The tweet below refers to West’s attempt to pass this same bill earlier this year.
tRump’s attack on Colorado because they won’t bow to the whim of the tyrant. His withholding money is illegal but no republican will stand up to the demented king.
Some New York City teachers say it’s high time for a refresher on old-fashioned clocks.
Tiana Millen, an assistant principal at Cardozo High School in Queens, said this year’s ban on smartphones revealed that many teens struggle to read traditional clocks. “That’s a major skill that they’re not used to at all,” she said.
Overall, Millen said, the phone ban has been a major success at the school, and has helped kids focus in class and socialize at lunch. Foot traffic is moving more swiftly in hallways. Without eyes glued to their phones, more students are getting to class on time. The problem is they don’t know it, she said, “because they don’t know how to read the clocks.”
For years, parents and teachers have blamed technology for a range of lapsed skills — from legible handwriting to sustained attention to reading whole books — even as their proficiency with technology far outstrips their elders. Still, while educators have widely praised New York’s statewide smartphone ban that went into effect this fall, multiple teachers told Gothamist it has also laid bare an unexpected gap: How to tell time.
“The constant refrain is ‘Miss, what time is it?’ said Madi Mornhinweg, who teaches high school English in Manhattan. “It’s a source of frustration because everyone wants to know how many minutes are left in class. … It finally got to the point where we I started saying ‘Where’s the big hand and where’s the little hand?’”
According to the education department, students learn how to read clocks in first and second grade. “At NYCPS, we recognize how essential it is for our students to tell the time on both analog and digital clocks,” education department spokesperson Isla Gething said. “As our young people are growing up in an increasingly digital world, no traditional time-reading skills should be left behind.” Officials said kids are taught to master terms including “o’clock,” “half-past” and “quarter-to” in early elementary years.
After dismissal outside Midwood High School in Brooklyn, many students said they do know how to read wall clocks — but they have classmates who can’t.
“They just forgot that skill because they never used it, because they always pulled out their phone,” said Cheyenne Francis, 14.
“I know how to read a clock,” she added. ”The only time I guess I would struggle is if the time is wrong on the clock. Because sometimes they don’t set the proper time.”
Several students said clocks in their school are often broken.
Farzona Yakuba, 15, said she can tell time the old-fashioned way, but she empathizes with classmates who struggle.
“I feel like I’m one of those students sometimes because I know how to read the clock if I really need to. But I feel like most students here, they just get lazy and they ask. And I feel like I do that a lot,” she said.
Concern about students’ analog clock literacy predates the phone ban. In 2017, an Oklahoma study found only one in five kids ages 6-12 knew how to read clocks. England started replacing analog clocks in classrooms with digital ones in 2018. Grandfather and cuckoo clocks just aren’t as common as they used to be. Even kids who master clocks early on don’t have to practice that skill the way they used to.
“It’s underutilized,” said Travis Malekpour, who teaches social studies and math at Cardozo. He said he’s integrated telling time and managing calendars into some of his algebra lessons.
Kris Perry, executive director of Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development, said it makes sense that teens who have grown up in a fully digital environment haven’t had to practice analog clock-reading. She said the question is whether the shift amounts to a “a cognitive downgrade or just a replacement.”
She noted that brain scans have shown that holding books and handwriting generally lead to more brain activity than reading and typing on screens.
But several educators pointed out that while students’ clock-reading skills may be lagging, their digital skills are strong. Many schools have sophisticated coding and robotics programs, and teachers said they sometimes turn to kids for help with technology.
Mornhinweg said she recently had trouble opening a PDF for a lesson because of new software. She said her students calmly walked her through it.
“I was freaking out and they were like, ‘Miss it’s fine, this is what you do.’ I felt really old,” she said.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the subjects Travis Malekpour teaches.
Ellie House and Mike Wendling Gainesboro, Tennessee
BBC/Ellie House
Real estate developer Josh Abbotoy on the site of his planned future development outside Gainesboro. Abbotoy’s customers, including two self-described Christian nationalists, have caused controversy locally
As Josh Abbotoy gazes out at lush green woods and pastureland nestled among Tennessee’s Appalachian hills, he describes what he intends to build here: a neighbourhood with dozens of residential lots, centred around a working farm and, crucially, a church.
“A customer might very well buy and build roughly where we’re standing right now,” he says as we hike up to the top of a ridge.
Mr Abbotoy is founder of the real estate company Ridgerunner, which has bought land here and in neighbouring Kentucky. But his is no garden-variety housing development.
Mr Abbotoy is prominent in US conservative circles and describes his development as an “affinity-based community” – marketed to people not only interested in the peace and quiet of rural life, but in a constellation of right-wing ideals.
“Faith, family and freedom,” he says. “Those are the values that we try to celebrate.”
BBC/Mike Wendling
Josh Abbotoy points to a map of his development in the Ridgerunner offices in Gainesboro
Initially he didn’t attract much local attention after setting up shop in Jackson County.
But in late 2024, a local TV news report broadcast controversial statements made by two of Mr Abbotoy’s first, and most outspoken, customers: Andrew Isker, a pastor and author originally from Minnesota, and C Jay Engel, a businessman from California.
They are self-described “Christian nationalists” who question modern values, such as whether female suffrage and the civil rights movement were good ideas, and call for mass deportations of legal immigrants far in excess of President Donald Trump’s current plan. Another thing they sometimes say: “Repeal the 20th Century.”
The TV report raised an alarm bell amongst some local residents.
“You don’t know who these people are, or what they’re capable of,” says Nan Coons, a middle-aged woman who spoke in a firm southern accent during a recent interview near the town square in Gainesboro – of which this land is a part.
“And so it’s scary.”
Although Abbotoy himself does not identify as a Christian nationalist, he says concerns about his tenants are overblown.
The Ridgerunner development has since drawn national attention. And people in Gainesboro, home to around 900 people and one traffic light, have now found themselves in the middle of a dispute that is a proxy for much bigger political battles.
Podcasters move in
Mr Isker and Mr Engel announced their move to Gainesboro last year on their podcast Contra Mundum – Latin for “against the world”.
On their show, which is now recorded in a studio within Ridgerunner’s Gainesboro office, they have encouraged their fans to move into small communities, seek local influence, and join them in their fight to put strict conservative Christian values at the heart of American governance.
“If you could build places where you can take political power,” Mr Isker said on one episode, “which might mean sitting on the [board of] county commissioners, or even having the ear of the county commissioners and sheriff… being able to do those things is extremely, extremely valuable.”
Contra Mundum
C Jay Engel (l) and Andrew Isker (r) shown during an episode of their podcast
On X, Mr Engel has popularised the idea of “heritage Americans” – a fuzzy concept but one that applies mainly to Anglo-Protestants whose ancestors arrived in the US at least a century ago. He says it is not explicitly white, but it does have “strong ethnic correlations”.
He’s called for mass deportations of immigrants – including legal ones – writing: “Peoples like Indians, or South East Asians or Ecuadorians or immigrated Africans are the least capable of fitting in and should be sent home immediately.”
In their broadcasts and writings they have also expressed anti-gay sentiments. The podcasters deny they are white nationalists.
Both are Ridgerunner customers, and Mr Isker’s church will move into the community’s chapel when it’s complete.
The ‘resistance’
Their hardcore views have alarmed residents, with some locals setting up an informal resistance group.
“I believe that they have been attempting to brand our town and our county as a headquarters for their ideology of Christian nationalism,” says town matriarch Diana Mandli, a prominent local businesswoman who until recently owned a pub on Gainesboro’s central square
Late last year, Mandli led the charge by writing a message on a chalkboard outside her business: “If you are a person or group who promotes the inferiority or oppression of others, please eat somewhere else.”
BBC/Mike Wendling
More signs opposed to the new development followed. When people caught wind that the Ridgerunner guys were holding a meeting at a nearby fast food joint, dozens turned up to confront them.
Ms Coons, whose ancestors have lived in Gainesboro since around the time of the US Revolutionary War, says she engaged Mr Engel in conversation.
“He explained to me that what they’re promoting is what he called ‘family voting’… one vote per family, and of course, the husband in that family would be the one voting” with women frozen out of the electorate.
Mr Engel has since said publicly that it’s not “wrong” for women to vote, although he does support the idea of household suffrage.
BBC/Mike Wendling
Local residents put up a billboard outside of town
In a county that voted 80% for Donald Trump in the last election, Ms Coons is used to living next door to neighbours with conservative views.
But she and others came away from the protest convinced more than ever that the beliefs of their new neighbours were too extreme.
They say they don’t want to run them out of town, but intend to sound the alarm about what they say are extreme views, as well as thwart any future attempt to take over the local government.
“This is where we have to draw the line,” Ms Coons says.
What is Christian nationalism?
Christian nationalism is a nebulous worldview without a single coherent definition.
At the extreme end, as outlined by theorists including author Stephen Wolfe, Christian nationalists advocate for rule by a “Christian prince” – an all-powerful religious dictator, who reigns over the civil authorities and leads his subjects to “godliness”.
Less extreme versions take the form of calls for Christian law to be explicitly enshrined in American legal codes, for religious leaders to get heavily involved in politics, or simply for an acknowledgement of the Christian background of America’s founding fathers.
This multiplicity of definitions has created a strategic ambiguity that experts say has helped Christian nationalism seep into the mainstream.
Big ideas or far-right plan?
Mr Abbotoy’s development is still in the early stages – his company is building roads and organising sanitation infrastructure. When the BBC visited in November, workers were busy knocking down a decrepit old barn, one of many that dot the Appalachian landscape.
But business is brisk. Around half of the lots are already under contract. Mr Abbotoy anticipates that the first houses will be built and new customers will begin moving in at the beginning of 2027.
BBC/Ellie House
Building on the Brewington Farms site will start within months, with new residents moving in soon, in just over a year
Many of his customers, he says, are moving to heavily Republican Tennessee from Democratic-majority states like California and New York.
“People want to live in communities where they feel like they share important values with their neighbours,” he says.
Mr Abbotoy says he doesn’t call himself a Christian nationalist, but describes the criticism of his customers as “absurd” and says they have no intention to try to take over local government.
“They’re talking about big ideas and books,” he says. As for some of their more controversial views, he insists that “rolling back the 20th Century can mean a lot of things. A lot of conservatives would say we took a lot of wrong turns.”
Mr Isker and Mr Engel did not respond to multiple requests for comment and a list of questions.
BBC/Ellie House
Nan Coons belongs to an informal group of Gainesboro residents who are alarmed at their new Christian nationalist neighbours
Small-town fight goes nationwide
The fight here in Gainesboro has drawn in players far from small-town Tennessee.
Mr Abbotoy, who was educated at Harvard Law School, is also a partner at a conservative venture capital fund, New Founding, and a founder of the American Reformer, a website that has published the writings of a number of other prominent Christian nationalists.
His opponents meanwhile have received research assistance and advice from a national organisation, States at the Core, established last year to tackle authoritarianism in small communities. It is funded by a constellation of left-wing organisations. States at the Core declined our request for an interview.
The men of Ridgerunner have pointed to the organisation as evidence that the pushback against their project has been orchestrated by powerful liberals. The locals say this is ridiculous.
“Nobody’s cut me a cheque to say anything,” Ms Coons says.
In Gainesboro, people on all sides see a much bigger story – one of large-scale political fights playing out in rural America.
Republicans have made huge gains in rural areas this century, and in 2024 Trump stretched his lead in rural communities, winning 69% of the vote. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently announced a reported eight-figure investment ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, a chunk of which will be dedicated to winning rural voters.
“There’s definitely a renewed, [Democratic Party] focus on rural engagement,” Mr Abbotoy says. “And at the same time, there’s been a wave of people moving to small town America precisely because they like the Bible Belt, they like the conservative traditional culture.”
But Nan Coons and her allies say they aren’t ready to concede rural areas like her hometown to Christian nationalists.
“If we are going to turn this tide, it starts on your street, it starts in your neighbourhood, it starts in your small town,” she says.
“I have to stand for something, and this is where I stand.”
This AG was not elected to any office, he was handpicked and given his job by DeathSantis. Both are Christian nationalist who feel it is great to force their religion on others even as they do not live by their own church doctrines in any way. They seem to feel forcing the public to live by their church doctrines or what ever view they think their god endorses is perfectly fine regardless if others disagree. They are the first to scream the loudest if their rituals or they think their rights to oppress others is interfered with, but they also seem unable to give others the same rights they demand for themselves. Hugs
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) is urging the Pensacola City Council to shut down a Christmas-themed drag show, which he has deemed “demonic” and “harmful” to children, despite how it is exclusively for adults over the age of 18.
The city’s Saenger Theatre plans to host “A Drag Queen Christmas” on December 23. The website says fans should “expect a fabulous remix of classic Christmas hits, dazzling themed variety performances, and interactive moments to share your Christmas cheer.”
A letter from Uthmeier claimed the show “openly mocks one of the most sacred holidays in the Christian faith” and expressed horror that some of the queens evoke “satanic imagery” in their outfits or characters. He also decried the fact that it will be playing at the same time as the city’s family-centered Winterfest.
“So, while Penscola children are taking pictures with Santa, men dressed as garish women in demonic costumes will be engaged in obscene behavior mere feet away,” he ranted, even though the drag show will take place inside a theater where the children at the festival won’t be able to see it.
The Pensacola city attorney has reportedly refused to cancel the show, saying it would violate the drag show production company’s First Amendment rights and the city’s contract with the theater’s management company.
Uthmeier, however, said the city – which owns the theater – has a legal right to supersede the management company’s decision to put on the show if it deems a performance detrimental to public health or safety. He said the drag show meets this criterion because it will be taking place near children at Winterfest, even though they won’t be able to see it.
“While the First Amendment safeguards freedom of expression, it does not require a city to platform and endorse disgusting, obscene content that denigrates its residents’ religious beliefs,” Uthmeier concluded.
He claimed it may even amount to religious discrimination and could cause legal issues for the city, especially if one of the “deranged performers” were “to expose themselves to the kids” nearby. The preposterous idea that LGBTQ+ people are inherently a danger to children has long been used by the right to fearmonger and stir anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment.
The letter comes after a group of churches in the city launched a campaign to pressure the Pensacola City Council to cancel the drag show. The controversy has caused an uproar in the community, the Pensacola News Journal reported, where pro- and anti-LGBTQ+ residents continue to clash over whether the drag show should be permitted to go on.
At a packed and contentious city council meeting in early October, resident Jermaine Williams called out the hypocrisy of those claiming to oppose the show on religious grounds.
“I mean, we see how y’all vote,” Williams said. “Half of these people that spoke today wouldn’t know Jesus if they stared him in the face.”
Another resident, Stephen McCollum, gushed that drag queens are “more than entertainers.”
“They’re small business owners. They’re advocates and they’re educators who use creativity to uplift others and welcome all. They welcome all, demonstrating that this art form is more than just a performance. It’s a form of connection, and it’s a form of community, and it’s a form of hope.”
Uthmeier has long used his position to vilify and terrorize LGBTQ+ people. Earlier this year, he launched a crusade against a Life Time Fitness in Palm Beach Gardens after discovering that the private business had a trans inclusive policy. State law requires people use facilities aligned with their sex assigned at birth, but that does not apply to private businesses.
Uthmeier, however, claimed otherwise in a letter sent to the gym. He falsely claimed that trans inclusion leads to “assaults, exploitation, and fear” and that he was merely doing this to protect women and girls.
Even after Life Time said it would comply with his demands, Uthmeier posted a video in which he visited the gym in person to make sure they are “not allowing trans women into women’s bathrooms, not in Florida,” and “actually following the law.”
“It appears they are,” he reported to followers, though it’s unclear how he could have confirmed this without major privacy violations of the individuals entering and exiting the locker rooms there.
This past October, Uthmeier also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a parental rights activist who dubiously claims her child’s middle school helped her child secretly transition. She has now petitioned the Supreme Court to take her case.
Uthmeier’s brief claims government officials across the United States “are fundamentally altering the upbringing of children and keeping parents in the dark” with “secret transition” policies.
These policies do not involve schools encouraging students to be trans or transition, but rather to support any students who willingly communicate that their gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth and to allow the student to choose when to share that private information with their parents. For some students with anti-trans parents, telling them could be dangerous.
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ne of the best-kept secrets about DEI is that it helps men—that includes white men—get into college. If you do not work in admissions, you are likely unaware of this fact, and that’s by design; one admissions officer even told The Wall Street Journal it’s “higher education’s dirty little secret.” But it’s been true for decades. Women’s college enrollment surpassed men’s all the way back in 1979, and the gender gap has only widened in the interim. Over just the last five years, as college enrollment numbers plunged by roughly 1.5 million students, men have accounted for more than 70 percent of that decline. In an increasingly difficult effort to maintain something approximating gender parity, admissions officers at private universities have for years used “gender balancing,” accepting male applicants at higher rates than female applicants. The Supreme Court ruled that race-consciousness in college admissions is unconstitutional in 2023. That means affirmative action is technically illegal, just not if it benefits men.
Under the Trump administration’s anti-DEI directives, schools would be forced to abandon gender balancing, leaving fewer men in college. More specifically, fewer white men, since they make up the majority of male applicants.
And the most precipitous drops would happen at America’s elite institutions of higher education. Private schools are the only colleges allowed to practice gender discrimination, which has been legally banned at public colleges since 1971’s Title IX passed. But the Trump administration, using federal funding as a bargaining chip, is pushing colleges to sign its Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. The plan specifically names “gender identity” as one of many traits that cannot be “considered, explicitly or implicitly, in any decision related to undergraduate or graduate student admissions.” And while there have been few signatories to that plan, the administration has succeeded in having Brown, Columbia and Northwestern sign agreements that state students will be accepted “solely on their merits, not their race or sex.”
Even as they use that language, which is deliberately crafted to imply unqualified women are getting away with something, right-wingers are well aware that men are increasingly turning away from college. Anti-anti-racist activists including Christopher Rufo have groused for years about the “feminization” of higher education, a complaint that makes sense only if said complainer understands that men are the ones quietly being advantaged. Their endless chatter about ending gender DEI in education is just right-wing PR—a way to keep grievances simmering instead of acknowledging who’s actually being given a hand up.
Not that any of them are shouting about this from the rooftops—and to be fair, admissions is opaque on every front. So how do we actually know men are being given an advantage—and not that, say, “women are more willing to apply to long-shot schools than men are,” as libertarian outlet Reason posits? There are clues. We know that women earn higher GPAs in high school, are almost twice as likely to graduate within the top 5 percent of their class, and are more likely to take AP courses—all things schools take into consideration. In addition, admissions officers sometimes just come right out and tell us. Shayna Medley, a former Brandeis University admissions officer who penned a 2016 Harvard legal paper on gender balancing, told The Hechinger Report that “standards were certainly lower for male students.” An ex-Wesleyan admissions officer told The New York Times that gender balancing required being “more forgiving and lenient” with male applicants, adding, “You’d be like, ‘I’m kind of on the fence about this one, but—we need boys.’” (“The process sometimes pained him,” the article notes, “especially when he saw an outstanding young woman from a disadvantaged background losing out to a young man who came from privilege.”) ”Probably nobody will admit it,” the former president of a small liberal arts college confessed in a 1998 Times piece, “but I know that lots of places try to get some gender balance by having easier admissions standards for boys than for girls.” (snip-MORE on the page)
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier speaks about the arrest of 28 members of the Mongols motorcycle gang during a press conference at the Stephen Saboda Training Center near Daytona Beach, Wednesday, July 2, 2025. | © Nigel Cook/News-Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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