News (USA)

Lesbian teen who got kicked out by family turns them in as possible MAGA rioters

The Capitol was vandalized during the January 6 insurrection
The Capitol was vandalized during the January 6 insurrection Photo: Shutterstock

An 18-year-old lesbian who says she has been kicked out of her home outed her Trump-loving family members who participated in a violent altercation in D.C. on the even of the MAGA riots at the Capitol last week after she saw pictures of them being shared on social media and people were trying to identify them.

“Hi this is the liberal lesbian of the family who has been kicked out multiple times for her views and for going to BLM protests to care what happens to me,” wrote Helena Duke in a tweet, who then proceeded to give her family members’ names in response to photos of the protest.

Related: Gay Trump supporter was proud to “storm the Capitol.” Now he says he’s “in fear for my life.”

Helena said that her mother Therese Duke turned off a location-tracking app they share last week and told her daughter that she was accompanying a family member for a medical appointment.

But on Thursday morning – the day after the riots that left five people dead at the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, install Donald Trump as president for at least four more years, and execute Mike Pence – Helena’s cousin sent her a video of a violent encounter in D.C. on Tuesday evening, the day before the riots.

In the clip, a group of white people in the streets were harassing a Black woman. Helena saw her mother and her aunt and uncle, Annie and Richard Lorenz, and she saw that her mother had tried to grab the Black woman.

“My initial reaction was more like, ‘Oh my gosh, I was right. I was actually right about them being there,'” Helena told BuzzFeed News. “It was very surreal because it was an insane video, first of all, and then it was the revelation that, ‘Oh, that’s my mother. That’s her.'”

So she texted her mother and asked her how the “medical appointment” went.

“Please call me or talk to me if you really wanna know,” Therese replied.

Helena asked Therese where she was on Wednesday night, and she didn’t reply. She saw that people online were looking for the identities of the people in the viral video, so she decided to tell.

“Before President Trump was elected, she was a Democrat for the majority of her life,” Helena said of her mother. “And then, I don’t know what happened. Something switched in her brain, and she went through a very dramatic change to very far right.”

The lesbian teen participated in a Black Lives Matter protest earlier this year. When her mother found out, she kicked the teen out and told her that she believes that Black Lives Matter is “a violent organization and they would be inciting violence.”

“hi mom remember the time you told me I shouldn’t go to BLM protests bc they could get violent…this you?” Helena wrote in a later tweet.

The teen said that her family members have been contacting her to remove their names from her tweets.

“We are not proud of how things went in DC,” her aunt wrote in a text. “I know you are upset but putting us in danger isn’t going to solve anything. Please … I am Begging you to remove.”

But Helena said that she doesn’t believe she did anything wrong.

“I always felt almost heartbroken over how they viewed the world and how skewed it was and how they wouldn’t allow me to express my views. But showing that they can act in such a horrible way is just really appalling to me,” she said. “I am honestly very disappointed to have to be part of this family that is so…just, very not welcoming or supportive. I don’t feel safe being part of this family.”

It is currently unclear if Therese or the aunt and uncle participating in the riots at the Capitol the next day.

Don't forget to share:

Support vital LGBTQ+ journalism

Reader contributions help keep LGBTQ Nation free, so that queer people get the news they need, with stories that mainstream media often leaves out. Can you contribute today?

Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated

Will the religious right suffer any consequences for its role in the Trump insurrection?

Previous article

Did Azealia Banks just dig up her dead cat & eat it? It looks like it.

Next article