Following recent public fights with prominent conservatives on Twitter, state Sen. Scott Wiener was the subject of another bomb threat on Tuesday.
The threat was sent in an email to the San Francisco Standard, which reported it to Wiener and to police. The email, which was also sent to SFGATE, had the subject line “Scott Wiener will die today” and falsely accused Wiener of being a “pedophile” who “grooms kids.” The author, listed as Zamina Tataro, said they had planted “several” bombs in Wiener’s home. The author also threatened to shoot up his office.
“I’m willing to die today,” the person wrote.
Conservatives have increasingly used the term “groomer” as a blanket pejorative for supporters of LGBTQ rights. It incorrectly implies that, by introducing children to concepts involving gay and transgender people, LGBTQ advocates and allies are “grooming” kids for sex.
The Standard reported that Wiener’s home was searched by police early Tuesday morning and that no bombs were found. Additionally, the Standard reported that a person named Zamina Tataro also sent a threatening email to Oakville Trafalgar High School in Ontario in November, claiming they had planted several bombs within the school in response to a widely publicized story about the attire of a transgender teacher employed there.
“The extreme homophobic and transphobic rhetoric that has escalated on social media and right wing media outlets has real world impacts,” Wiener, who is gay, said in a statement Tuesday. “It leads to harassment, stalking, threats, and violence against our community. People are dying as a result. Responsible political leaders on the right must call it out and stop tolerating it.
“I will always fight for the LGBTQ community — and the community as a whole — and will never let these threats stop that work.”
Wiener’s home was also searched for bombs in June after the San Francisco lawmaker joked on Twitter about introducing a bill in the California Legislature that would make “Drag Queen 101” a part of the state’s K-12 curriculum. The author of that threat, which was sent in an email to members of Wiener’s staff, also accused Wiener of “grooming children” and claimed bombs had been placed in his office and home. No bombs were found.
Tuesday’s threat comes on the heels of two fights Wiener got into on Twitter.
The first fight, with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, started after Wiener condemned the use of anti-LGBTQ language in the wake of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, which killed five people and injured several others. Greene called Wiener a “communist groomer” and urged her followers to support her “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” a bill that would make gender-affirming care for children a felony, ban the use of puberty blockers and prohibit colleges from teaching subjects related to gender-affirming care, among other things.
The second fight, with prominent far-right pundit Charlie Kirk, started after Kirk accused Wiener of drafting a bill that will release “thousands of pedophiles” from jail. Wiener’s bill, which took effect last year, seeks to make the state’s statutory rape laws more equitable for gay people.
Wiener addressed both fights in his Tuesday statement.
“This latest wave of death threats against me relates to my work to end discrimination against LGBTQ people in the criminal justice system and my work to ensure the safety of transgender children and their families,” he said. “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and MAGA activist Charlie Kirk recently tweeted homophobic lies about me, falsely accusing me of supporting pedophiles and child ‘mutilation.'”