Joe Raedle/Getty Images
- The Proud Boys' former leader Enrique Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy on Thursday.
- But despite recent convictions like his, the extremist group has been gaining ground across the US.
- The group has ramped up its attendance of anti-LGBTQ protests and landed roles in local politics.
The Proud Boys' former leader Enrique Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy on Thursday and now faces up to 20 years in prison, but the far-right extremist group he ran is still alive and well.
The Proud Boys have turned their attention from attempting to overturn the 2020 election to targeting the LGBTQ community, and specifically, drag performers.
In January of this year, states across the US introduced a total of 14 bills that aim to restrict or criminalize drag performances, according to the free-speech advocacy group PEN America. And the Proud Boys have jumped on the bandwagon.
In 2022 alone, Proud Boys members either led or attended an average of one anti-LGBTQ protest per week across the US, as previously reported by Insider's Laura Italiano.
But it's not just protests that the extremist group has been infiltrating — members have also worked their way into local politics, particularly in Florida. At least six current or former Proud Boys members have joined the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee, The New York Times reported last year.
A member of the North Carolina Proud Boys, Jeremy Bertino, told The New York Times that the group wants to disrupt the establishment from the inside.
"The plan of attack if you want to make change is to get involved at the local level," Bertino told the Times.
A federal jury in Washington, DC, found Tarrio and three other Proud Boys members guilty of seditious conspiracy on Thursday in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.