Far-right bigot Matt Walsh goes on hateful rant about drag after Colorado Springs shooting
Just days after the Colorado Springs shooting Matt Walsh criticised the idea of taking children to drag shows, which he described as “inherently sexual”. (YouTube/Matt Walsh)
Far-right, anti-trans troll Matt Walsh has gone on an abusive rant about drag performers on his YouTube show, just days after a horrific shooting at an LGBTQ+ venue in Colorado Springs.
Matt Walsh, whose Twitter bio calls him a “theocratic fascist”, claimed that the media were behaving like “vultures” for allegedly “blaming conservatives” for the shooting at Club Q.
The shooting saw five people killed – Kelly Loving, Daniel Aston, Derrick Rump, Ashley Paugh, and Raymond Green Vance – and while officials are still investigating a motive, many have drawn a line between anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and the attack.
Because Club Q had been planning to host a drag brunch the day after the shooting, Walsh claimed that the “left” is “desperate to keep exposing children to this kind of debauchery”.
He slammed the idea of taking children to drag shows, which he described as “inherently sexual”, seeming to blame drag performers for rates of violence against the LGBTQ+ community.
“Family-friendly drag shows have two purposes, one from the drag queen’s perspective is to satisfy their fetish for cross-dressing in front of children,” said Walsh, who’s also known for opposing abortion and equal marriage.
“The other… is to indoctrinate children into queer theory… is to turn your children queer.”
He added: “If [drag] is causing this much chaos and violence, why do you insist on continuing to do it? If according to you it’s putting people’s lives at risk… why are you still doing it, is it that important to you?”
Defending his video on Twitter after a journalist claimed he was “blaming the victims” of the Club Q shooting, Matt Walsh said: “As the clip shows, I said no such thing.”
LGBTQ+ activists have stated there is a “straight line” between hateful rhetoric against the queer community and the horrific attack in Colorado Springs, which took place just minutes before this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance.
“You can draw a straight line from the false and vile rhetoric about LGBTQ people spread by extremists and amplified across social media, to the nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year, to the dozens of attacks on our community like this one,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD.
“That this mass shooting took place on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we honour the memory of the trans people killed the year prior, deepens the trauma and tragedy for all in the LGBTQ community.”
The Colorado Springs shooting was stopped after an army vet grabbed the shooter’s gun and beat them with it. A trans woman helped by stamping on the shooter with her heels – two of the victims who have died were trans.
The trans community has faced an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in America just this year, with some states banning gender-affirming care for minors, and others attempting to stop trans children from playing sports.
A bill aiming to ban public drag performances in Texas has been branded “a literal ban on trans people performing in any capacity” by critics.
Police have arrested 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich in connection with the shooting.
Lawyers have said Aldrich is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns in a court filing.
Matt Walsh has previously come under fire for using his show to compare trans healthcare to experimentation, molestation, abuse and rape, claiming the US school system is trying to “recruit” children into the “LGBT ranks”, and attempting to “trick” trans people into joining an “anti-trans documentary”.
