Capitol bragged in a Snapchat video that she was recently recruited by a Kansas City chapter of the Proud Boys, a neofascist organization that describes itself as “Western chauvinists†and has long forbidden female members.
In order to seemingly prove her point that she had just been “recruited into a (expletive) chapter from Kansas City,†she displayed on the video a two-sided “challenge coin†that appears to have markings that designate it as belonging to the Kansas City Proud Boys.
The Proud Boys' social media channels quickly responded, calling auxiliary groups such as Proud Boy's Girls or Proud Girls “ridiculous ideas.†“Don't ride our coattails,†one post read.
Alex DiBranco, executive director of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism, said there are differences among Proud Boys chapters over whether to embrace women as Proud Girls, even as the group as a whole has become more hostile to women's auxiliaries in recent years.
But DiBranco said the people in her group who have worked on this topic are still unaware of a situation where a woman was actually recruited to be a member of a Proud Boys' chapter itself, which is strictly against the Proud Boys rules.
Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that for a period of time there were auxiliary groups of Proud Boys' Girls made up of the wives and girlfriends of members, but they were not allowed full membership within the group.
Prosecutors allege in a court filing that William Chrestman, who they described as the leader of Kansas City Proud Boys cell, “readily recruited†Felicia Konold and her brother, Cory Konold, from Arizona to join the group of Kansas City Proud Boys.
Groups like QAnon tend to be popular with women, but Proud Boys supporters and QAnon supporters come together at these types of protests
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