Evangelical leaders’ transgender-restroom rhetoric explicitly incited violence against transgender people

Evidence

In language reminiscent of that voiced by ERA opponents three decades earlier, Dobson issued a desperate call to action to American men to defend their wives from men who dressed like women in order to peer over bathroom stalls, and their little girls from men “who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of them.” If any of this had happened a century ago, “someone might have been shot. Where is today’s manhood? God help us!” … General Boykin concurred: “The first man who goes in the restroom with my daughter will not have to worry about surgery.” … The Family Research Council executive vice president claimed to be surprised when the LGBT community responded by calling him out for inciting violence. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 541

Categorization

• XREF: Direct echo of the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ article: moral panics that frame male violence as protection of women and children.
• SEED: Documenting that mainstream evangelical leaders issued what they knew were calls to violence and then feigned surprise at the response — a pattern worth tracing forward to January 6.
• DEEPTHINKING: The rhetorical move — call for lethal force, then genuine confusion that targets object — reveals the operative assumption that male violence is righteous and questioning it is the offense.