Chaya Raichik, founder of Libs of TikTok is interviewed by Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz.in California. (Screenshot/YouTube The Washington Post)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Chaya Raichik, the notorious founder and creator of the extremist anti-LGBTQ+ social media account Libs of TikTok has been added to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s listing for hate and extremists individuals, groups and organizations.
In February, NBC News technology reporter David Ingram, detailed bomb threats and violent threats inspired by Raichik’s social media posts. NBC News identified 33 instances, starting in November 2020, when people or institutions singled out by Libs of TikTok later reported bomb threats or other violent intimidation.
The threats, which on average came several days after tweets from Libs of TikTok, targeted schools, libraries, hospitals, small businesses and elected officials in 16 states, Washington, D.C., and the Canadian province of Ontario. Twenty-one of the 33 threats were bomb threats, which most commonly targeted schools and were made via email.
In November of 2023, in a lengthy exposé, Media Matters researchers documented 25 institutions, events, and individuals who reported threats after being targeted by Libs of TikTok, and 8 who reported harassment.
In April 2022, Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz unmasked Chaya Raichik as the person behind the social media account @LibsofTikTok. Raichik has characterized the event as “doxxing” (maliciously posting personal information online) and said that being exposed motivated her anti-LGBTQ+ activism.
A Human Rights Campaign December 2022 report on the link between online harassment and offline violence named Libs of TikTok (LoTT) as one of the accounts responsible for a “campaign of hate against hospitals and medical providers who offer gender-affirming care.” The report found that “24 different hospitals and providers, across 21 states, … were directly attacked online following harassing, inflammatory and misleading posts,” some authored by LoTT.
In December 2022, Raichik appeared for the first time on camera with Tucker Carlson. On an episode of Carlson’s Fox Nation program, Raichik compared LGBTQ+ identity to a cult and pushed false claims about transgender people.
Raichik, a formerly active New York City real estate agent, directs her brand of extremist vitriolic anti-LGBTQ outrage towards a massive audience of 2.6M followers on X (formerly Twitter), was profiled in the USA Today newspaper last Fall.
The article documented multiple incidents of her Libs of TikTok posts that are regularly followed by harassment and threats of violence. Bomb threats to hospitals and harassment against hospital staff have followed the account’s posts to social media. A similar relationship is apparent in a series of bomb threats, death threats, and harassment efforts against schools, libraries, and educators.
Raichik responded by gleefully posting a photograph of herself holding the paper with the profile article clearly visible on the USA Today front page writing: “Today’s front cover of @USATODAY!” Not long after, X-formerly Twister’s platform owner Elon Musk congratulated her to which she thanked him for and expressed her gratitude for Musk ‘protecting’ free speech.
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s listing for Raichik is extremely long and detailed. Some key points include:
- “In addition to suspensions of care and terror among America’s health care workers, (her) disinformation campaign has been the basis for right-wing legislative efforts to ban gender-affirming health care in the United States.”
- “On Aug. 25, 2022, Raichik posted an audio recording purporting to confirm her claims that Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., was also providing “gender-affirming hysterectomies on minors.” Although the hospital denied the report… they also received threats, including death threats directed to doctors and bomb threats. “
- “Along with threats to children’s physical safety – including bomb threats to children’s hospitals – the disinformation campaign led some hospitals and clinics to suspend care or remove vital information from their websites, which jeopardizes the lives of LGBTQ+ people”.
- “Raichik led an anti-inclusive education campaign that relied on conspiracy theory, anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda and the ‘groomer’ slur. In addition to advocating bans of LGBTQ+ books, Raichik has advocated for schools to “out” LGBTQ+ kids and called for LGBTQ+ teachers to be fired.”
- “Raichik and anti-inclusive education groups have falsely claimed that providing safe bathrooms for transgender students will result in schools installing litter boxes for children who identify as cats.”
In January of this year, Ryan Walters, the state superintendent of public instruction for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, appointed Raichik to the Library Media Advisory Committee.
Walters claimed that she would help “make Oklahoma schools safer for kids and friendly to parents.” Her appointment, however, contrasts with her history of targeting LGBTQ+ people in schools and hospitals through viral posts that often precede bomb threats against her targets.
Her online vitriolic hate has recently factored into the ongoing controversy over the suicide death of an Oklahoma trans teenager Nex Benedict.
The SPLC listing notes that Raichik’s social media posts and public appearances often focus on demonizing LGBTQ+ people. Raichik spreads false information including anti-trans pseudoscience about transgender identity and experiences that stoke fear, distrust and hatred of trans people.
Though she claims to be motivated by a desire to protect children, Raichik has targeted children’s hospitals, as well as other spaces and events that directly serve children, for campaigns of abuse and intimidation – putting them in danger of bomb threats, gun violence and exposure to vicious anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
These types of attacks have been labeled stochastic terrorism by media and law enforcement, the term referring to political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech.
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaassociation.com.
