How long have you been a homophobic asshole?

"Then they ran off like the cowardly pieces of shit they are."

I'm fairly certain that YOLO is just Carpe Diem for stupid people.

• Jack Black

There were long stretches of DNA in between genes that didn't seem to be doing very much; some even referred to these as "junk DNA," though a certain amount of hubris was required for anyone to call any part of the genome "junk," given our level of ignorance.

• Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

Somewhere along the line, self-righteous White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexuals got it into their heads that they’re the Chosen Ones. Thus, being superior humans, they’ve assigned themselves the right to harass and bully those who fail to “measure up”- you know- gays, lesbians, transgender people, drag queens, and the LGBTQ community generally.

They, of course, never actually had that right. It was self-ascribed, and they were piggish and egotistical enough to believe it.

So when some of Charlie Kirk’s goons tried to harass Arizona State University writing instructor David Boyles into a “gotcha” moment…unsurprisingly, it didn’t quite go as planned.

Brownshirt goons from diaper enthusiast Charlie Kirk’s rightwing group “Turning Point USA” were trying to get a “gotcha” moment on camera when the ambush interview devolved into an assault on an Arizona State University writing instructor the alleged journalists had been harassing. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

ASU writing instructor David Boyles is on TPUSA’s Please Send Death Threats To This Academic Who Is Destroying America site for the crimes of co-founding Arizona’s branch of “Drag Queen Story Hour” and for writing that “Sex education is a topic I’ve been obsessed with for a while.” He has written about the need for more queer representation in sex ed, so obviously he needed to be harassed and accused of being a pedophile.

Boyles wrote on Facebook that he was leaving a university class he teaches on LGBTQ+ youth in pop culture and politics Wednesday when he was ambushed by a TPUSA guy recording him with a cell phone and a “reporter” doing what Boyles described as “‘citizen journalist’ cosplay[.]”

If you want, you can see the full video of the “encounter” on X, formerly known as Twitter, formerly known as a useful social media site. Boyles was being harassed by a “reporter,” a Turning Point USA thug named Kalen D’Almeida, who asked Boyles if he’d answer some questions. D’Almeida was accompanied by someone recording the ambush interview on a cell phone.

Boyles, fully aware of what was happening, declined to answer D’Almeida’s questions and attempted to walk away. Boyles

tried repeatedly to walk away from the two, who bravely kept following him like jerks as D’Almeida peppered him with increasingly inflammatory, homophobic questions, asking when he “became obsessed with sex education,” which was at least something Boyles said, as though sex ed is dangerous and wrong, then, after Boyles refused a second time to engage, accelerating to gross hypotheticals like

“OK, so if I ask you how long you've been attracted to minors, or how long you've fantasized about minors having sex with adults and why you write about it in children's books, what are you going to tell me? Nothing? What’re you gonna do?”

It was pretty clear where things were heading; D’Almeida’s questions were heading toward the “So when did you stop beating your wife” vein of ridiculousness. Boyles had no intention of playing their game and continued trying to escape D’Almeida and his companion.

For the sake of accuracy, we also don’t think he has himself written any children’s books at all, although he has written about LGBTQ representation in books….

The harassment continued; D’Almeida then told Boyles “you can’t run” and added, like a reasonable person, that he only seeks a dialogue: “It's best you just talk to me about why you want to push sodomy onto young people. That's the best thing to do is have a conversation.”

Yeah, why can’t people just calmly talk over simple accusations like that anymore? The asshole also wanted to know why Boyles thinks children should see drag performances “where they shake their genitals and their fake breasts.” He is only asking questions, you see.

And then D’Almeida began to ramp up the ridiculousness to provoke Broyles and get his “gotcha” moment.

The video then suddenly cuts to another scene where D’Almeida accuses Boyles: “You really, really hate Americans,” which we suppose is a reference to blog posts where Boyles calls far-right people who show up to harass Drag Queen Story Hour events “neo-Nazis” bent on violence, shame on him.

“You just are disgusted with Americans in this country. And it’s funny, because — you would like to see a different America exist where little boys are sodomized by people like you, right?”

At this point, Broyles, realizing what would happen if he didn’t exit the situation, decided that enough was enough. He put his hand up to block the video, and the fun began.

The whole point of D’Almeida’s harassment was to use the video to inspire an ever-increasing cycle of violence and harassment directed at David Boyles.

It was a brazen attempt to goad Broyles into responding in a way that TPUSA could use to make him look bad. To his credit, Broyles kept his composure and was eventually himself attacked.

The TV news report shown below shows him being attacked by D’Almeida and his companion.

Later, TPUSA claimed that its “reporter” was only attempting to ask “a few simple questions” when Boyles “assaulted, pushed, and clawed at our cameraman.”

And it might have remained a Boyles word against the goons’ word situation, except for the surveillance video that turned up, which clearly shows the TPUSA goons assaulting Boyles.

In a description that sure sounds a lot like “he brazenly used his face to repeatedly bash into my knuckles,” the Xeet explains that its “reporter”

then attempted to remove Professor Boyles from our cameraman, which caused Mr. Boyles to fall and scrape his face on the ground.

Gosh how clumsy of him.

The Xeet also claims that the camera cut out because Boyles hit it so hard that it “resulted in a disconnected wire that caused the video to cut out,” so that’s convenient.

However, video from ASU security cameras shows D’Almeida shoving Boyles forcefully away from the camera dude, knocking him to the ground. He certainly didn’t simply lose his balance.

ASU police spokesperson Adam Wolfe said the incident is being investigated as a “potential bias or prejudicially motivated incident.” A TPUSA flack says the camera person is planning to file a police report, because no one should take a swipe at a camera after being relentlessly goaded and accused of wanting to sodomize little boys, those were just simple questions I’m not touching you I’m not touching you, why are you getting upset pedo, are you too excited thinking about raping children huh?

Sadly, TPUSA feels justified in harassing innocent people like Boyles. Because he doesn’t toe the White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexual line, those homophobes who are deathly afraid of those who are different feel justified in harassing them. Instead of leaving them alone or ignoring them as irrelevant, these brave warriors run in packs and gang up on individuals.

These assholes are bullies, plain and simple. They can’t fight their battles independently, so cowards like Kalen D’Almeida bring a “cameraman” with them to overpower a single gay professor.

Courageous, huh?

And then there are the tactics TPUSA uses to create attention for their “cause” and to harass those the group feels pose threats to “Christian morality.”

TPUSA’s “Professor Watchlist” page on Boyles is written to make him appear to be a sex offender, particularly in the eyes of the Far-Right types targeted by TPUSA.

David Boyles is a Professor of English Writing at Arizona State University (ASU). His “areas of expertise” include but are not limited to “Rhetoric,” “Public Communication,” and “Gender Studies.”

AZ Free News featured Boyles in an article titled “Meet the ASU Professor Behind Arizona’s Drag Queen Story Hour.” The source writes:

“Boyles established Drag Queen Story Hour-Arizona in 2019, a chapter of the national Drag Queen Story Hour organization…Boyles has been featured in several ‘The Art of Drag’ events alongside one of his drag queen storytellers…The most recent event occurred on Wednesday [September 20, 2023].  During the presentation, Boyles said that the notion that drag shows are harmful to children was a ‘myth.’ He also said that drag queens have been long considered the leaders of LGBTQ+ communities.”

During “The Art of Drag” talk, Boyles claimed Drag Queen Story Hour-Arizona has been “targeted by acts of violence” and “neo-Nazis showing up to disrupt events.”

It’s one thing to be opposed to Drag Queen Story Hours. That’s anyone's prerogative in a free society, but that right doesn’t extend to armed threats and intimidation of those who see nothing wrong with that sort of activity.

If you oppose Drag Queen Story Hours, feel free not to attend them- but that’s where your rights end. You don’t have the right to attempt to frighten and intimidate others from attending such activities that they may enjoy.

Not everything can, will be, or should be seen through a heteronormative White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexual filter. Some folks enjoy drag. Some enjoy gay bars. Some don’t. That’s the great thing about human diversity; we’re all into something slightly different- and what trips my triggers doesn’t have to do the same for you.

I’ve been to drag performances. They don’t do much for me, but I have no real problem with them. Part of me admires anyone who would put themselves through what it takes to get themselves into character for that type of performance. But, it’s not my thing, though I have no problem with others enjoying it…and why should I? Just because I’m not really into drag doesn’t mean I have the right to deny that to someone who might find it rather enjoyable.

No one at TPUSA or anywhere else has the right to try to stuff David Boyles into a box of their making. He has every right to live as he sees fit. If no one’s being harmed, then what concern should TPUSA have? Why are they concerned with how someone else is living their life? Do they not have enough going on in their own lives? Do they get off on being busybodies?

I hope Kalen D’Almeida and his “cameraman” are charged with a bias crime. That’s precisely what they were doing, and they should pay for harassing an innocent person.

In the meantime, I hope David Boyles will keep doing the good things he does for the LGBTQ community. The more people like him, and the more people who support him, the better off this world will be.

And the more we piss off the TPUSA trolls, which brings me no end of joy. I hope they enjoy their reserved parking spaces in the Hell I don’t believe in.

(All of my posts are now public. Any reader financial support will be considered pledges- support that’s greatly appreciated but not required to get to all of my work. I’ll leave it to my readers to determine if my work is worthy of their monetary support and at what level. To those who do offer their support, thank you. It means more than you know.)