Protests over school recognition of Pride month turned violent for the second time over the past week in Southern California. Among these protesters are allegedly members of the white nationalist Proud Boys organization.

On Jun. 2, parents of Saticoy Elementary School gathered to protest the school’s Gay Pride and Rainbow Day assembly. Outside of the Glendale Unified School District (GUSD) school board meeting in Glendale, Ca. on Tuesday Jun. 7, anti-LGBTQ groups protested the board’s decision to recognize June as Pride month. In both cases, counter-protesters who showed up in support of LGBTQ recognition were faced with violence by anti-LGBTQ extremists.

While conservative lawmakers and activists nationwide seek to eradicate the education of gender, sexuality and race, conservative extremists are organizing on the ground to make their point very clear: LGBTQ history and events in schools are to be eliminated.

Prior to the incident at Saticoy, a neighborhood in Ventura, Ca., when the Gay Pride and Rainbow Day assembly was decided last month, unhappy parents of the school took it to Instagram to create an extremist Instagram account named Saticoy Elementary Parents to organize in protest of the assembly.

Their bio says: “Keep your kids home and innocent on Jun. 2.” Shortly after, an unknown suspect broke into the school on May 22 and burned a small Pride flag that belonged to a trans teacher.

The Pride assembly was meant to highlight “diversity,” the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) told KTLA. Teachers had also planned to read Mary Hoffman’s The Great Big Book of Families, a book that depicts gay parents and non-traditional families, in addition to adoption, foster parenting, and blended families.

The teacher, who is still at Saticoy Elementary but working at another location for safety reasons, told LAist that they’ve been at the school for seven years in a 30-year-long teaching career. In the meantime, they’ve been taking a temporary leave in order to keep their students safe, though they are unsure if they will go back.

The teacher shared their frustrations about anti-LGBTQ rhetoric they’ve faces, especially regarding notions of pedophilia and grooming—a common talking point by anti-LGBTQ conservatives.

“I didn’t give 30 years to the district and all the years with two master’s degrees and a bachelor’s degree, and an AA degree and everything else that I did to get here to prey on children,” said the teacher.

In attendance that day was Vishal P. Singh, a Hollywood documentary filmmaker and independent journalist who focuses on social justice, police brutality and far-right extremism in Southern California. Singh, who is nonbinary, has had harassment campaigns made against them, including having their address and phone number doxed. Singh tells Reckon that at the protest, they were repeatedly shoved and hit by right-wing demonstrators, “many of whom were calling me by name.”

“A right-wing demonstrator even grabbed my neck before LAPD moved in and pulled me to a safer location,” they said. “At least one pro-LGBTQ+ person was left unresponsive on the ground during that brawl and received a concussion. There were no arrests on either side and no injuries on the anti-LGBTQ+ side. The current anti-LGBTQ+ political climate feels like a powder keg and I’m not sure when it will blow.”

Singh believes that the Proud Boys, and other extremists’ pushback is more focused on base building, recruitment and radicalization as opposed to preventing an assembly or winning a local school board vote. A video on Twitter reveals that several people often seen with Proud Boys were present, one of them calling counter-protesters “animals” in the video. A few who were amongst the anti-Pride crowd were aggressive towards the police as well.

Over 100 parents rallied against the assembly, and they outnumbered those who were there in support. According to ABC7, the crowd remained mostly peaceful, “but AIR7 HD was overhead when some individuals appeared to get into a heated argument.” A large fight, including other real-time videos can be found in this Twitter thread.

Ray Jones, who goes by the name Serendipity in drag, was also on site at Saticoy last week. During the outburst, Jones, who is based in Sun Valley, witnessed an unhoused person beat nearly to death by right-wing extremists. They are currently fundraising for the victim, whose name is Percy.

Jones also attended the gathering for the Glendale school board meeting to decide whether June will be recognized as Pride month. The board held a unanimous vote in favor of Pride month, which has happened for the past five years. This year, according to NBC Los Angeles, protestors who’ve taken issue with the LGBTQ curriculum and policies have been gathering outside of the board meetings for the past few weeks.

According to the LAPD, “While most of the protest was peaceful, a small group of individuals engaged in behavior deemed unsafe and a risk to public safety.” Videos online surged, showing far-right extremists including members of Proud Boys attacking LGBTQ parents. In one video, a far-right extremist pepper sprayed a religious clergy member who was there in support of LGBTQ families.

“It isn’t necessarily surprising,” said Jones, who tells Reckon that the Los Angeles School District (LASD) and GUSD consistently vote pro-LGBTQ. “What people forget is that this is a very loud minority. Because it’s a smaller community here, you’re gonna hear these people a lot louder. I’m just on a high level of alert, because you have that trauma in the back of your head, like, is that gonna happen again?”

In a video, Proud Boys Bryce Henson, Louie Flores, Sylvie Araujo were identified alongside a Jan. 6 insurrectionist Andy Lai at the Glendale school board meeting. One footage shows clear tensions amongst a crowd, including Proud Boy Adam Kiefer. The situation eventually grew confrontational, leading to physical fights.

“Despite police attempts to de-escalate the situation, at least three individuals were arrested for various charges, including unlawful use of pepper spray and willfully obstructing officers in the course of their duties,” Glendale Police Department said in a statement.

According to California’s 2011 Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, LGBTQ curricula are necessary. Also known as SB48, it amended its preexisting FAIR Act—originally set to include women, Native Americans, Black Americans and even European Americans—to include LGBTQ studies. It does, however, provide schools flexibility on how inclusion of LGBTQ curriculum is implemented. Regardless, real violence is happening as a result.

“One thing that’s really important to say is that this is [caused by] extremist lawmakers,” says Dr. Eliza Byard. She is the former Executive Director of GLSEN and current co-founder and Senior Advisor of Campaign for Our Shared Future, a nonprofit for inclusive education.

Byard says that she works with Republicans who are equally horrified by what’s happening. “Extremist politicians are pursuing a political program of exclusion, targeting and harm,” she said.

To her, the harm affects children, families who are experiencing the brunt of this and the quality of education.

“It is clear the vast majority of parents want their children to get a good education, want them to learn empathy, and want them to adhere to basic American values of diversity and pluralism,” Byard said. “We can’t allow the political agenda of a minority of extremists to undercut crucial benefits of every single family’s child.”

Ultimately, Singh suggests building networks and communities, but also to not be afraid of outnumbering far-rights in the streets to remind them that their prejudice is a minority in this country.

“When we do that, we can close down ideological spaces of supremacist and prejudiced thinking,” Byard said. “You can’t necessarily change the way an individual looks at an issue, but you can help build a world around a community that incentivizes love and empathy for each other.”