CNN: “The Proud Boys hashtag, which members of the far-right group have been using, was trending Sunday after gay men on Twitter hijacked it and flooded the feed with photos of their loved ones and families and with memes. The Proud Boys recently made headlines by celebrating President Trump’s reply at last week’s debate, when he was asked to condemn White supremacists. The President instead used his allotted time to blame what he called ‘antifa and the left’ for violence and to tell the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by.’ But now the gay men of Twitter are making the group’s hashtag known for entirely different reasons.”
“But Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, said he doesn’t see what the men are trying to accomplish. ‘I think it’s hysterical,’ Tarrio told CNN. ‘This isn’t something that’s offensive to us. It’s not an insult. We aren’t homophobic. We don’t care who people sleep with. People think it’s going to bother us. It doesn’t.’ He added, ‘One of the messages they want to send with this is that they’re trying to drown out our supporters, they’re trying to silence us. … When you’re trying to drown out other people’s thoughts, I don’t think there’s anything progressive about that. Why don’t these people just engage?'”