Several months ago, I began receiving anti-LGBTQ+ (particularly anti-T) emails at my work account. These emails were not work-related, came from accounts I did not recognize, and were often similarly worded. Quickly, I learned to recognize them before opening and marked them as spam, consigning them to the trash and blocking the sender’s email address.

About the same time, I started getting random anti-LGBTQ+ (again, particularly anti-T) comments on public Facebook posts. They were not from actual Facebook friends, but from accounts unknown to me. The messages were often identically worded. I deleted the posts and blocked the accounts, but they continued to appear. Twice, I received private messages from these accounts saying something to the effect of, “You can keep blocking my account, but I’ll just create another one.”

Related

Does Charlie Kirk deserve the special posthumous privileges and awards he has been given?

Now I know why this happened.

Unknown to me until this week, I was placed on Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA “Professor Watchlist” in April 2024. TPUSA created this list to warn students and parents against post-secondary teachers who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” Parents and students, according to TPUSA, “deserve to know the specific incidents and names of professors that advance a radical agenda in our lecture halls.” A tagline on one Professor Watchlist page reads “unmaking radicals / advancing freedom.”

In the project’s introductory video, Charlie Kirk explained that the purpose of his site was to expose “the most radical left-wing professors” teaching in “America’s radical education system.” He encouraged informants to provide “tips about radical schools, universities, and professors,” which would help him “save America.” 

I could write for days refuting these charges and some of the specifics in my entry. As a teacher since 1990, I have always aimed for reasonable objectivity in my classroom. I have never suppressed anyone’s voice, and I have especially avoided bringing too much of my viewpoint to discussions on hot-button political issues. Within one year of Trump’s first election, for example, I removed myself from teaching the American Political Systems course, knowing I could not maintain objectivity during the administration of the gravest presidential threat of my lifetime.

None of this would be enough for TPUSA, though. I’m a gay teacher. I’m an advocate for LGBTQ+ equality – in social life, under the law, and in curriculum. I’m liberal. I’m anti-Trumpist. Nothing more is required to qualify for placement on this McCarthy-like list of teachers that TPUSA believes might prove a danger to young minds and a threat to America.

When I heard that Kirk had been shot, I hoped for two things. First: that he would recover. Second: that the horrific experience would provide an opportunity for him to modify his rhetoric and abandon his angry views. I hoped he’d be home soon with his family, re-evaluating his life and what he wanted to do with it. I hoped he would have a chance to learn empathy (a word he didn’t like), that he’d modify his stance on firearm regulation, that he’d learn at least to tolerate LGBTQ+ rights, and find in his heart compassion for immigrants. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

Charlie Kirk was a smart, talented man. Unfortunately, he used those skills to make the world a meaner place. Regrettably, he will never have the chance to redeem himself. His wife and children will walk into their futures without him, and their loss will last a lifetime. His harsh views are forever frozen in the eternity of the internet, and his attempt to intimidate teachers with his Professor Watchlist will long outlive him.

Everything about this moment is heartbreaking.

Rodney Wilson is the founder of October’s LGBTQ+ History Month USA. He teaches American History and World Religions at a community college in rural southeast Missouri. He was profiled in 2019 in the documentary-short Taboo Teaching. 

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