I am an admirer of James Lindsay, although I often take more than a little time to arrive at the same or similar conclusions as he does. For a long time, I was skeptical about there being a "woke right," more because I thought the framing didn't make sense.
Woke and "right" didn't seem like they went together. I understood the "who" of which he was speaking, but not why he classified them as woke. I still think that the term is too off-putting for most people to grasp quickly without dismissing it, but I now understand why he chose it. The woke right are people who have embraced the key concept that there are "oppressed" and "oppressors," just as the woke left believes; they just differ on who is doing the oppressing.
Lindsay's framing of the Groypers, though, is spot on: they have embraced a branch of Queer Theory.
The Groypers especially and the Woke Right more generally are a kind of Queer Theory, though not the kind you're probably used to.
— James Lindsay, anti-Communist (@ConceptualJames) November 7, 2025
You think the idea of Queer Theory is "LGBTQ+" and so the Woke Right and Groypers are anti-Queer Theory, but that's a surface-level understanding.…
The Groypers especially and the Woke Right more generally are a kind of Queer Theory, though not the kind you're probably used to.
You think the idea of Queer Theory is "LGBTQ+" and so the Woke Right and Groypers are anti-Queer Theory, but that's a surface-level understanding.
Queer is defined this way by David Halperin, who is recognized as a founding father of the school of thought:
“Queer,” then, demarcates not a positivity but a [political] positionality vis-a-vis the normative—a [political] positionality that is not restricted to lesbians and gay men but is in fact available to anyone who is or who feels marginalized because of her or his sexual practices:"
Halperin starts off this paragraph-length definition with the words "unlike gay identity," though, so we have to dig deeper.
What kind of sexual practices is he talking about? ABNORMAL, TRANSGRESSIVE ones. How can we tell? He explicitly tells us:
"Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant."
Groypers and the Woke Right are 100% this, though, just not necessarily about their sexual practices (or lack thereof). They feel marginalized because of their abnormal, transgressive beliefs and behaviors, JUST LIKE QUEER THEORISTS.
They also act exactly the same: performative identity, deliberate transgressive behaviors, activism designed to blur boundaries and undermine norms of respect and decency, provocation for the sake of deconstructive provocation, deliberate disruptiveness, and then all the mob-driven internet and social violence designed to cow people into silence, submisison, or agreement.
This is just the same Queer Theory in other clothes. Instead of drag queens, it's goose-stepping, but the point is the same: to tear down norms to advance their power and agenda and to humiliate and conquer their enemies. Their "drag" is "trad," and it's a style with no actual substance ("an identity without an essence," as Halperin describes it). It's a [political] positionality vis-a-vis the normal and the legitimate in the pursuit of domination.
Queer Theorists show up to be disruptive with their radical, garbage politics and call it "queering" a space. Groypers show up to be disruptive with their radical, garbage politics and call it "groyping" a space. Same exact thing. Both even cut deceptive "stunning and brave" videos of themselves doing it to try to make themselves look better than they actually were in reality.
It's just another vein of Queer Theory. Same purposes, same methods, same tactics, same destructive trash.
A lot of people don't understand what "Queer" means in the context of LGBTQ+, mostly because the Q is tossed in with the LGB and T. But, as James very rightly points out, Queer is not so much a sexual identity as a rejection of sexual norms, and all norms in general.
The underlying belief is that "normal" means "unfree," "constrained," and "oppressed." Societal norms are about wiping away identity, so the best way to express identity is to attack societal norms in any and every way possible. The "Q" we think of in LGBTQ+ is opposed to the LGB categories, not an extension of them.
The "T" and the "Q" are both about rejecting norms. The first, obviously, is biology and gender norms, and the "Q" about rejecting all societal norms. That's why the terminology is constantly changing and you can't pin any of these people down on anything—being "something" is limiting and makes you unfree.
Groypers have adopted similar tactics and ideas, but pushing in a direction that appears ideologically opposite. Their shtick is to define their freedom as a rejection of anything within the Overton Window. If being a Nazi or a Stalinist is unacceptable, then they will praise Hitler and Stalin. Antisemitism offends? Then they will be antisemitic. Racism is bad? They are racists.
It is anti-maturity, based on the belief that the dominant society hates them so much that they must strike back. Both the left-Queer and right-Queer views are that society is fundamentally oppressive to them, so breaking society must be their goal.
They are performing for each other, and part of the performance is shocking and offending us. Those people who say that they are attention whores who should be ignored have a very good point, but for the fact that they are actually managing to be very destructive to society.
When we talk about them, we are not giving them more attention. They already have it. Nick Fuentes gets more views on any of his videos or tweets than I do in half a month, writing six articles a day. Any one piece of mine will get read a few tens of thousands of times, if I am lucky. Fuentes has videos, which run for one to five hours, that get seen more than a million times PER VIDEO.
That's why it is essential to understand him. He is already big, and nothing I do or don't do changes that even a little bit, since our audiences don't and never will overlap. Nobody reading this is or will be attracted to Nick Fuentes. His audience is teenage boys and young men in their early 20s who believe America does and has sucked.
It's that belief that makes them who they are. They hate us, and their response is to be "Queer." Not in a sexual sense, specifically, but as an all-encompassing identity. They define themselves in opposition to you, me, and everything our society stands for.
It is, quite literally, the opposite of conservatism. I don't say that merely because I disagree with him and his views; it goes to the essence of what Groypers ARE. They despise American society because they believe it has rejected them.
In a sense, they are right on that point. These are the young men who have spent their lives being told they are toxic. The response is as understandable as it is wrong.
Charlie Kirk's mission was to point people, especially young men, to a healthier response to living in a toxic environment that tries to degrade them. Rather than pointing them to hatred, he pointed them to God and redemption.
The truth is that all of us are square pegs trying to fit in round holes. Some of us fit more easily than others, but all of us experience conflicts between our individuality and the necessity of living in a society and world where there are necessary (or unnecessary) constraints on our ability to fully thrive.
The process of growing up and maturing is learning how to navigate that world, and lots of people have not developed the skills necessary to do so, and all the social cues for young white men push them away from wanting to integrate into a society that keeps telling them that they are evil and the cause of all the ills in the world.
If you are constantly told you are toxic, then why not be toxic to the people who hate you? If you can't build, then destroy.
That is the view of the "Queers" on both the right and the left. They want to invert the power structure in society because the one that exists, they believe, hates them already.
The Groypers aren't "far right." They are "Queer." They are against anything "normal."
Thanks, James, for clarifying that.
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