Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images
- An interactive map shows what happened each time the Proud Boys joined anti-LGBTQ+ protests in 2022.
- Most of the extremist group's activity targeted drag performances, the map shows.
- It also shows their increasing presence at protests involving violence, weapons, and other extremists.
Once a week on average in 2022, the Proud Boys joined or led anti-LGBTQ+ protests across the US, according to new data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED.
Insider worked with ACLED to create this map, which shows what happened at each of these protests. It's part of Insider's look at the Proud Boys' increasing war on LGBTQ+ community, and drag in particular.
Sixty percent of the Proud Boys' anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrating last year happened outside drag events, mostly seen by organizers and attendees as celebrations of diversity for families and children.
"On one side of the street, I saw signs calling me a groomer," drag king Oliver H remembered recently of the Proud Boys' final drag story hour protest, on December 29, when they held signs reading "Groom dogs, not kids" at a public library in the New York City borough of Queens.
"On the other side of the street, they were singing 'High School Musical,'" he said, describing the more than 200 counter-protesters. "Each side of the street was so different."
Oliver H recounts that day as part of this project.