Minneapolis, MN: Community Mobilizes After Neo-Nazis Put Up Anti-Queer Posters

Last week, these fliers (pictured below) were hung up around the Como neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Edina, Minnesota by white-supremacist Neo-Nazis, as evidenced by the link to Ironmarch.org, a prominent fascist online forum. The statistics cited in the fliers were published in a 2016 study called “Invisible Victims, Delayed Onset Depression among Adults with Same-Sex Parents,” which was conducted under flawed and unethical research practices, and sponsored by The Catholic University of America. (Fliers read: “92% of children raised by Gay Parents are abused, 51% have depression, 72% are obese. STOP THE FAGS”.)

The LGBTQ Guard, a Twin Cities volunteer organization dedicated to ensuring the physical and mental safety of the LGBTQIAP and other marginalized communities, partnered with Outfront MN’s Anti-Violence Program and organized “Spread Love Not Hate,” an event for community members to come together to create and distribute our own fliers throughout the Como neighborhood. The themes and purposes of the fliers varied from affirmation and support of the queer community, to defiant and radical. Pictured below are some of the works that materialized from this act of resistance. Flier aphorisms included “Spread Love, Not Lies”, “You Are Loved”, “I [heart] Gay Parents”, “Make America the Gayest It’s Ever Been”, “Make Fascists Afraid Again”, “Punch Your Local Nazi and Love Yourself”, and “The Fags Won’t be Stopped.”

We won’t be frightened. We won’t be silenced. We sure as hell won’t be stopped.