Boston Children’s Hospital Targeted by Far Right Extremists
For several weeks, Boston Children’s Hospital has been under attack by far-right extremists who are spreading false claims about the hospital’s Gender Multispecialty Service, the first pediatric and adolescent transgender healthcare program in the US. Pyrra has identified fringe content targeting the hospital first spiking in mid-August.
The hospital published informational YouTube videos on care options for trans patients, sparked outrage amongst members of the far-right who instantly launched a malicious harassment campaign, threatening the hospital and its staff, and accusing them of abusing children and forcing kids to undergo gender reassignment therapy. False claims that the hospital performs major gender reassignment surgeries on minors went viral, even though the video series did not imply such surgeries were available for minors.
The far-right treats transness as a major societal threat, and increasingly embraces conspiracies to justify their opposition to trans people in their communities. For example, Pyrra has seen repeated claims that providing gender affirming healthcare to transgender youth is part of an organized eugenics program focused on shrinking the planet’s population.
The malicious harassment campaign was fed by the “Libs of TikTok” - a popular disinformation account - which pushed a series of lies about trans people and Boston Children’s Hospital. Facebook’s meek attempt to put a stop to the campaign - a 24 hour ban on the account - only added fuel to the fire, with disinformation quickly spreading that the ban was permanent and an unjust suppression of free speech.
The US Department of Justice has since opened up an investigation into the death threats being lobbed at the hospital’s practitioners and staff.
The attacks against Boston Children’s Hospital are now a familiar playbook for the online far-right, who are increasingly targeting the LGBTQ+ community with hateful and violent disinformation campaigns. A popular tactic is to spread the false narrative that gay and trans people are pedophiles who “groom” children into identifying as gay and trans. Widespread outrage (and subsequent harassment) has been whipped up around the country against schools, libraries, and hospitals – essentially, extreme harassment follows establishments that demonstrate active support of LGBTQ+ youth.
Pyrra enables users to identify and track narratives in the unregulated corners of the internet where hate and extremism fester unchecked. American society is increasingly shaped by extremist responses to the accelerated news cycle. When political earthquakes happen, keep pace with the rapidly evolving extremist narratives with Pyrra’s high-level dashboard and advanced analytic tools.
