Rightwing Turning Point USA activists injure queer professor who they accused of grooming children

A queer Arizona State University professor sustained minor injuries after a confrontation with members of the right-wing student group, Turning Point USA, during which the members accused the professor of being a pedophile for co-founding a drag story hour organization.

According to the Arizona Republic, two Turning Point USA staff members approached writing instructor David Boyles on October 11 and began yelling at him about his organization, Drag Story Hour Arizona, all while filming him.

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“One filmed on his phone while the other shouted horrible and incendiary things at me, repeating standard right-wing nonsense about Drag Story Hour and also accusing me personally of pedophilia and hating America,” Boyles wrote on social media, along with a photo of himself depicting injuries to his face.

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Boyles described the extremists as “cowardly pieces of s**t” and “two right-wing fascists doing ‘citizen journalist’ cosplay.”

As Boyles refused to answer their questions, one of the Turning Point USA members warned, “You can’t run.” They followed him, asking why he felt children should be exposed to shows at which performers “shake their genitals and fake breasts” and asking why he is “obsessed with sex education.”

Police spokesperson Adam Wolfe said that one of the staffers shoved Boyle to the ground and then fled the scene. Comment from Turning Point USA accused Boyles of making the first move, “lunging, pushing, and clawing” at the person recording before the other one shoved him. Boyles claimed on Instagram he was trying to block the camera, “knowing that they were filming in order to post this online and inspire even more harassment against me.”

Surveillance footage that captured the incident shows Boyle sticking his hand out and pushing the camera away before being shoved hard by the other person into the ground.

“My physical injuries are relatively minor and I’m doing ok,” Boyles wrote on Facebook. “But I’m also feeling angry, violated, embarrassed, and despairing at the fact that we have come to normalize this kind of harassment and violence against anyone who tries to support LGBTQ+ youth (ironically the topic of the class I had just finished teaching) or just LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups in general.”

“Whether it is bomb threats against children’s hospitals and libraries, a store owner being killed for her pride flag, or the now standard rhetoric that anyone who supports LGBTQ+ youth is a ‘groomer,’ it has to stop.”

Boyles is named on Turning Point USA’s “Professor Watchlist,” which the organization bills as a site dedicated to “unmasking radical professors.” The group claims the named professors “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

The page dedicated to Boyles decries his support of drag queen story hours as well as his passion for queer-inclusive sex education. The list has led to harassment of professors, which led Arizona State University President Michael Crow to ask Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk to remove the school’s professors from the list.

“If you will not do so, please add me to the list,” Crow wrote, “as I will continue to support all of ASU’s faculty members in their right to teach, engage in scholarship, and advocate for their views without the kind of intimidation, abuse, and antisemitism which is found in the enclosed attachments and which occurs when faculty are placed on your list.”

Nevertheless, Boyles does not appear to have a lot of faith in the university’s support. On social media, he reportedly said he is not expecting much response from the school, accusing Arizona State of creating “a safe space for bigots of all kinds, partly in pursuit of donations from right-wing billionaires and partly because they are just cowards.”