Did Andy Ngo coin “TRANTIFA”?
Rght wing outlets including the Daily Mail and Fox News have popularized a term purporting to describe a violent strain in transgender activism. The New York Post attributes the coinage to a far right personality who has been linked with violent extremism.
by Evan Urquhart
While the overwhelming majority of ideological mass murders have always come from the far right, including every mass shooting in 2022, right wing media continually pushes the narrative that the minority groups they target are dangerous and inclined towards violence. Efforts to falsely portray the trans community this way have grown ever since a transgender man perpetrated a school shooting, the first ever by a lone transgender person, in Tennessee last March. In recent days, the idea that trans people could become violent has a new buzzword, one that has appeared in headlines at both the Daily Mail and Fox News: TRANTIFA.
This portmanteau of transgender and antifa was presented by both outlets in connection with quotes by Reem Alsalem. Alsalem’s Twitter bio lists her as a UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, and she is described by the Mail and Fox News as a UN investigator. Alsalem is quoted repeating allegations by fifth-place swimmer turned anti-trans activist Riley Gaines that Gaines was assaulted after an unpopular speech at San Francisco State University. (Gaines was, thankfully, uninjured after protests against her speech at SFSU grew so heated that she was escorted to a nearby classroom to wait out the hubub.)
The close proximity of Alsalem and the portmanteau led many to believe that Alsalem had coined it. However, Alsalem herself disavowed the term, saying it was brought up by the Daily Mail reporter and she would never use it.
screeshot from Twitter.com
This leaves open the question of who, exactly, originated the term. A story from the New York Post late last month may provide the answer. That story concerned a banner that was reportedly present at a counter protest opposing an anti-trans activist rally which said “Arm Trans Kids.” The Post’s story refers to the counter protesters as “TRANTIFA” and ascribes that moniker to far right personality Andy Ngo, who has been credibly accused of working with far right extremist groups. The Post links to a tweet of Ngo’s from May 28th in which he used the term.
While Ngo likely played a central role in popularizing the term, we were able to find some use of it on Twitter slightly earlier, though none before May of this year. Two small accounts, @NJDevs82 and @EdwardAgazarm each used the term on Twitter on May 23, but neither seemed likely to represent a coinage. Therefore, it seems likely that the portmanteau originated elsewhere in far right circles before being bosted by Ngo, whose usage caught the attention of the New York Post. There’s no information shedding light on where the reporter for the Daily Mail, James Renil, got it. The Daily Mail piece published on June 11, two days before the Fox News mention.
UPDATE 6/14/23, 12n EST: Soon after publishing, Assigned heard from more than one transgender person informing us that references to “trantifa” have long existed as a meme in the trans community. One of these, Alana McLaughlin, who Tweets as @AlanaFeral, joked that she was the real originator of the term and shared that it has been part of her Twitter bio for years.
screenshot from Twitter.com
The most plausible origin of TRANTIFA as a bogeyman on the right, therefore, seems to be right wing trolls in recent weeks adopting a trans joke and denuding it of context.