Activists Eric King, Josh Davidson, and Zane McNeill put the current federal attack on trans rights in historical perspective—connecting it to repression during the Red Scare, the Lavender Scare, Black Liberation and Gay Rights Movements, the Green Scare, and solidarity with Palestine.

In September, Donald Trump signed an executive order and memorandum designating antifascist activists and progressive nonprofit groups as domestic terrorist organizations, labeling them as “organized political violence.” The Trump administration’s criteria for this designation include: “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” “support for the overthrow of the United States Government,” “extremism on migration,” “extremism on race,” “extremism on gender,” and “hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family.”  At the same time, the Heritage Foundation—author of Project 2025—is lobbying the government to label and target transgender people as a separate domestic terrorism category. These policies will have sweeping consequences for organizers, protest movements, and civil rights advocates.

This talk situates these developments within the FBI’s long history of surveilling leftist movements, LGBTQ organizations, and liberation activists, and explores how current policy priorities continue that legacy. It will also explore what we can learn from past struggles—how organizers not only survived but built movements under constant FBI surveillance—highlighting harm and risk reduction strategies that remain relevant today.

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Zane McNeill (he/they) is the editor of Be Gay Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion (PM Press, 2025); Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future (The University Press of Kentucky, 2024); and Y'all Means All: The Emerging Voices Queering Appalachia (PM Press, 2022). 

Eric King is an anarchist who was imprisoned in 2014 for acts of solidarity with the Ferguson, Missouri, uprising. While in federal custody Eric was indicted for a self-defense incident at FCI-Florence. Eric took it to trial and is one of the few people to ever win at Federal Trial. After his victory Eric was sent to the Federal Supermax, ADX, an experience documented in his forthcoming book A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon. During his time in prison Eric coedited the political prisoner anthology Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners. Eric survived years of documented physical and psychological torture and made it out of prison with heart and soul intact. Eric is an activist, antifascist, and loving father and husband. He lives in Denver, CO.

Josh Davidson is an abolitionist, a member of the Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar collective, and part of the Children’s Art Project with political prisoner Oso Blanco. He has edited two books, Rattling the Cages and A Clean Hell, both with former political prisoner Eric King. He works in communications with the Zinn Education Project, which promotes the teaching of people's history in classrooms and provides free lessons and resources for educators.