Sophia Lorey thinks trans girls participating in women’s sports is unfair because they are “biological males.”

Lorey is a former collegiate soccer player who was invited on Aug. 20 to the Mary L. Stephens Davis Branch Library in Davis, Calif. to speak on her experience as a former collegiate soccer player as part of  a public forum on “Fair and Safe Sports for Girls.” The event was organized by the Yolo County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a right-wing extremist group with a track record of promoting anti-trans causes.

Some of Moms for Liberty’s talking points have included supporting book bans, classroom censorship, bans on teaching about slavery, race, racism and LGBTQ history. Though they claim to be a grassroots organization, its founders and founding chapter have strong ties to high-ranking elected officials and national anti-LGBTQ groups.

Anoosh Jorjorian tells Reckon that Yolo County’s Moms for Liberty as well as other conservative parents have been emboldened since the start of COVID-19, when they challenged the local school districts’ Board of Education to reopen schools, lift mask mandates and the requirement for coronavirus testing, claiming that it “infringes on children’s freedoms.” Jorjorian is the Director of Yolo Rainbow Families of the Davis Phoenix Coalition, and they identify as queer and gender-fluid.

“The level of ferocity and vitriol in these campaigns was a departure and elevation in hostility from anything these school boards had experienced before,” said Jorjorian, who noted that this behavior “primed” the community for the next wave, which has taken the form of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric — especially against trans kids in schools. “Here in Davis, we can see that there is an overlap between the parents who took part in anti-masking protests and the parents who are now attacking trans kids in school.”

At the forum, Lorey went on to make several points disapproving of having trans women be included in women’s sports, claiming that it was an issue of fairness. After a few warnings from the library’s general manager Scott Love to not misgender trans women, she continued with her speech and was eventually asked to leave, the crowd apparent in their verbal displeasure of how the forum went.

The attack on rights of trans women in sports ends up hurting cis women in sports because it creates a narrow discussion of what defines a woman, Jorjorian says. They see this debate as a “wedge issue” in an attempt to win conservative votes for the upcoming election and that so-called issues of fairness in sports — which have been debunked — obscure the fact that their advocacy is unjust and discriminatory.

A video shows Love interjecting during Lorey’s presentation, saying, “We don’t want any transgender females being called male in sporting events with females,” and that “if that happens, it’s not following our code of conduct and we will ask the person who says it to leave immediately.”

It took less than a day before prominent right-wing figures on social media took notice of the video footage, circulating the argument that Love infringed on Lorey’s first amendment rights.

For Jorjorian, weaponizing free speech to harm people is antithetical to the first amendment.

“Proving the chain—from a Moms for Liberty person posting on their social media about the incident at the library, [then] getting picked up by extreme right wing social media, and then a right-wing extremist picking up that message that leads to bomb threats to the library—is an extended chain of events that our legal system is not prepared to handle,” they said.

Riley Gaines, a conservative influencer with nearly 800,000 followers on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, made a TikTok video in response that Monday. Gaines expressed full support of Lorey and she concluded the video by attaching screenshots of Love’s full name, the phone number of the library and its Google review page.

“Silent majority, do your thing,” she said at the end of the video to her nearly 300,000 TikTok followers.

That same Monday afternoon, the Davis branch of the Mary L. Stephens Library was cleared out amid a bomb threat, with district officials evacuating a nearby elementary school. In a Facebook post, the City of Davis Police Department announced that nearby streets were blocked off “with no estimated reopening time.” Concerned parents of students who attended schools in the area expressed frustration at the lack of information shared by police.

Laura Powell, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, believes threats of violence incited by right-wing organizing are discriminatory and unjust.

“There is a clear cycle of violence where misinformation and disinformation are spread to gin up hate and fear about transgender people, which then spurs anti-LGBTQ+ threats and, in extreme cases, attacks,” Powell told Reckon. “Cynical and cruel attacks on LGBTQ+ people, whether they take the form of bomb threats against hospitals and libraries or extremist, hate-fueled disinformation that works to ‘other’ us, have no place in the world we all deserve to live in.”

The bomb threat was deemed false, though it wasn’t long until another one came. On Aug. 24, a second bomb threat hit the library. Davis police confirmed to CBS13 that the threats contained speech related to that incident.

“These messages share a common thread of hateful content and revolve around a heated meeting there,” the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office said.

A third bomb threat was reported within the same week on Aug. 28, resulting in the FBI’s investigation of the case. Davis police Lt. Dan Beckwith told The Davis Enterprise that all three bomb threats seemed to be related, “likely stemming from a person or group of people who are opposed to events that occurred last week.”

Yolo County Supervisor Lucas Frerichs tells Reckon that the county, the city of Davis and the University of California, Davis are also working together on a “Hate-Free Together” campaign to “condemn hate, create safety and cultivate change” and that the LGBTQ community will be protected under his supervision.

“I unequivocally support our county staff (including those working for the libraries) and our local public school teachers who have been under attack from anti-LGBTQ+ organizations,” he said. “I also remain a proud and committed ally of our LGBTQ+ community and I condemn these repeated terroristic threats against our community.”

Dwight Coddington, Yolo County’s Public Information Officer, tells Reckon that the investigation is still ongoing. Meanwhile, Jorjorian worries for the trans community in Davis and Yolo County at large.

“I want people to understand that this attack on some of the most marginalized kids in our schools is really just the first the first salvo in attacking public education in attacking our teachers and teachers’ unions, and attacking the principal of a society where everyone has rights, respects difference and works towards inclusion,” they said. “While this seems like an issue that only affects [trans] people, it’s really the right-wing foot in the door to attack everything that the United States is supposed to stand for, which is liberty and justice for all.”