Transgender Activist Promotes 'Supreme Court Assassination Challenge', Later Claims It Was Just a Joke
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last Friday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization which overturned Roe v. Wade, a transgender activist called for a "Supreme Court Assassination Challenge" on social media.
Eli Erlick, one of the founders of Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER), an organization that creates and distributes educational materials for non-binary students, and the creator of the "Gender Unicorn," a cartoon graphic for children to express their gender identity, tweeted and later deleted the remark the same day, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
But her tweet was captured and shared by several Twitter users.
The transgender activist who created the "gender unicorn" called for a "Supreme Court assassination challenge."
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) June 27, 2022
Eli Erlick tweeted and later deleted the remark on Friday:
Via @jchristenson_ https://t.co/wOHEronQIl pic.twitter.com/q3XKNq44cD
Erlick's tweet also caught the attention of Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) who responded: "The unhinged radical left is calling for the assassination of our Supreme Court Justices. That's not the way to disagree with a decision in America. It is unacceptable, and Biden's DOJ must immediately act."
The unhinged radical left is calling for the assassination of our Supreme Court Justices.
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) June 25, 2022
That's not the way to disagree with a decision in America.
It is unacceptable, and Biden's DOJ must immediately act. pic.twitter.com/BlJA8xWTKk
Erlick, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Santa Cruz, shrugged off Blackburn's response saying the assassination idea was an attempt at humor.
"I'm honored to be part of your fantasy of the 'unhinged left.' You not understanding the most basic tenants (sic) of Gen Z/millennial humor makes a lot of sense, though. Also, remember when you rallied your followers to kill Mike Pence?" Erlick claimed.
One user responded to Erlick, asking: "If it was a joke why did you delete it?"
Another user replied, "Yet if this was someone you targeted you'd be screaming for them to be de-platformed and canceled ...It's a-typical of the 'rules apply to YOU, but not to me crowd' ... Not sure this is the Ph.D material @ucsc is really looking for."
Another user later tweeted a photo of Erlick, writing: "Why is this person still on Twitter!!! They literally suggested Assassination of Supreme Court... We have the tweets and has been reported."
@EliErlick @twittersecurity
— Michael Dean (@michaeldeand01) June 26, 2022
Why is this person still on Twitter!!! They literally suggested Assassination of Supreme Court... We have the tweets and has been reported. RT RT RT RT.... @Jules31415 @BYLuvJedi @CryptoLawyerz @FBI pic.twitter.com/I5dD7Bcvvm
One day after deleting the tweet, Erlick posted a link to a Fox News story from 2015 when conservative columnist Ann Coulter joked to an audience that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. "The right only wants to defend the Supreme Court when it leans conservative. 'We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' crème brûlée,'" Coulter said in 2015," she wrote.
Erlick, 26, and the TSER are responsible for helping implement transgender policies in dozens of school districts across the country, including Wisconsin, New York, and Texas, The Free Beacon reported. It is the only national organization led by transgender youth.
According to the organization's website, it was originally envisioned as an organization for creating safer schools through youth-led action. But three years later, the group changed "equality" in its name to educational, "recognizing that equality will not be enough to liberate our community. Often, equality reinforces systems of white supremacy, transphobia, and injustice. Instead, we support a transformative practice of building broad structural change."
In 2016, Erlick's Gender Unicorn made headlines after the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina recommended principals and counselors no longer use the words boy or girl, but instead scholar or student.
In a recent op-ed published by The Washington Times, Keri D. Ingraham, Ph.D., a fellow at Discovery Institute and director of the Institute's American Center for Transforming Education warned parents about some of the LGBTQ content being directed at their children in public schools.
"The damaging process starts with kindergarten or first-grade classroom activities and reading books that expose these 5, 6, and 7-year-old children to queer and transgender content. An example is the Gender Unicorn, which asks children to select their gender identity ('female/woman/girl, male/man/boy or other gender(s)'), gender expression ('feminine, masculine or other'), and which gender they are attracted to physically and emotionally ('women, men or 'other gender(s)')," Ingraham wrote.
"The Gender Unicorn also asks children to select their 'sex assigned at birth,' with options including 'female, male, and 'other/intersex.' Think this isn't happening at your local public school? Think again," she continued.
Threats Against Supreme Court Justices, Attacks Against Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers
Threats against Supreme Court justices abounded on social media over the weekend following the ruling. One user wrote, "Can someone kill Clarence Thomas?" in a now-deleted tweet, according to The Free Beacon.
Earlier this month, a man carrying a gun, a knife and zip ties was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house in Maryland after threatening to kill the justice. Nicholas John Roske of Simi Valley, California, was identified in a criminal complaint charging him with the attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice.
Roske, 26, had a Glock 17 pistol, ammunition, a knife, zip ties, pepper spray, duct tape and other items that he told police he would use to break into Kavanaugh's house and kill him, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit filed in federal court in Maryland.
Roske told police he was upset by a leaked draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court is about to overrule Roe v. Wade. He also said he was upset over the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and believed Kavanaugh would vote to loosen gun control laws, the affidavit said.
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As CBN News reported, abortion extremists struck across the country over the weekend, lashing out at pro-life centers, lawmakers, and police officers in the latest spate of vandalism and threats.
The attacks ranged from Virginia to California, including other states like Oregon and Colorado.
The extremists are apparently even using a target map that was created by several professors to help them hunt down pro-life clinics. The professors' "Crisis Pregnancy Center Map" shows the exact street addresses of pro-life clinics around the country, allowing users to identify the closest clinics to them, according to Fox News.
In Los Angeles, a California man was arrested Friday and could be charged with attempted murder after he allegedly attacked a police officer with a "makeshift flamethrower" during a protest over the Roe decision, sending the officer to the hospital with burn injuries.
As CBN News has reported, since the leaked draft opinion of the Dobbs decision, more than 40 incidents of violence, vandalism, and intimidation against pro-life pregnancy centers have been reported.
Last week, the FBI opened an official investigation into the growing number of threats and attacks. More than 100 House Republicans have signed a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking the DOJ to investigate vandalism and attacks at pro-life centers as domestic terrorism.