Chaya Raichik, founder of Libs of TikTok, is facing backlash for applauding a video of a nonbinary teen crying after being forced into a headlock by their grandfather.
On July 9, the Libs of TikTok X account responded to a video of a nonbinary teenager crying and explaining that they were put in a headlock and thrown to the ground by their grandfather “because I asked to be called they/them.” The account captioned the video with “BASED GRANDPA” and a fire emoji. Many X users responded to this post and Raichik negatively, saying that she is supporting child abuse and endangerment.
This isn’t new for Raichik, who has endangered and targeted children several times before for the benefit of her campaigns and was recently added to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s database of extremists. She has inspired several cases of bomb threats being called into schools and gyms by sharing videos on her Libs of TikTok account.
Recently, she led a campaign against Planet Fitness gyms, a gym chain that lets high school students use their gyms for free during the summers and advertises itself as being a “judgment-free zone,” and caused 53 Planet Fitness gyms to receive bomb threats.
Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the first time Libs of TikTok and Raichik have caused bomb threats against children. In 2023, she shared a video of an Oklahoma librarian joking about being “just not quite finished pushing (her) woke agenda at public school.” Shortly after this video was shared, a school district near Tulsa experienced anonymous bomb threats six school days in a row. Additionally, an elementary school in Oakland, California received a bomb threat after Libs of TikTok shared the school’s scheduled “Playdate Social for Black, Brown, and API families.”
It seems Raichik is fine with child endangerment as long as it is beneficial to her conservative, anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies.
Photo courtesy of social media
