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The founder of a banned Antifa Twitter account, which encouraged violence against far-right activists, is a military veteran and former teacher accused of “brainwashing” students.
Heidi Beedle, 38, previously admitted to founding the anti-fascist Colorado Springs profile and blog, which allegedly ‘[instructed] comrades to attack people.’
Twitter banned the account last week as part of a crackdown on profiles accused of inciting violence. The group had published the identities and addresses of suspected far-right activists and fomented violence against them.
Beedle, a trans woman who is now a reporter at the Colorado Times Recorder, launched the account and blog several years ago when she was a teacher. She told DailyMail.com that she cut ties with the group ‘late 2018/early 2019’ and has not had access to the accounts since.
Beedle has previously spoken about coming out as trans around 2014 when she was a teacher, and how the experience led her “increasingly into anti-fascist activism.”
Beedle, pictured in front of an Antifa flag, has admitted launching the banned account but says she cut ties with the group in 2018 and has not accessed the account since. She claims that recent iterations of the account were started by a person she doesn’t know.
He first admitted to launching the Colorado Springs Antifa accounts in October 2019 tweets. The tweets appeared in a report by Andy Ngo, a conservative reporter for the post millennialafter the closure of the Twitter account.
Ngo also shared a selection of Beedle’s 2016 blog posts in which she revealed that a parent complained about her teaching students about “Trump vs. Hitler comparisons.” In another post, Beedle said she lent a student a copy of a book that includes “a kinky sex scene” and “a lot of drug stuff.”
In a Twitter thread, Ngo said: ‘[Beedle] she was a teacher and wrote about how she politically brainwashed students. She also wrote about giving a child a book featuring kinky sex to celebrate trans month.
He added that the Antifa account, which had 15,000 followers, was “operated for years instructing comrades to attack people and directing members to obtain home addresses and phone numbers of targets.”
Beedle, who has previously spoken publicly about his ties to Antifa, said Ngo’s reports are “sensationalized and wildly inaccurate.”
The account, which was suspended last week, was accused of “instructing comrades to assault people and ordering members to obtain home addresses and phone numbers of targets.”
She told DailyMail.com that she has not been involved with the Colorado Springs Antifa group since ‘late 2018/early 2019’.
“I haven’t had access to any social media or blog accounts since then,” he said.
“I don’t know anything about who is currently running the Antifa account or blog, which has migrated since I left.”
She admitted to starting the ‘original’ account, but added that ‘I think the one that got suspended was the second or third iteration.’ It had been suspended and recreated at least once since I left, if I remember correctly.
Beedle said: ‘NGO reporting is not going to have any impact on what anti-fascist activists are doing and will continue to do. For my part, I thank you for your service.
Musk said that all accounts that incite violence will be removed from Twitter, which he bought for $44 billion in October 2022.
In an October 2021 podcast, Beedle opened up about joining the anti-fascist movement.
He said that before transitioning, he spent eight years in the military and rose to the rank of sergeant.
Beedle, who was named Colorado School District 49 teacher of the year, told the Craig Silverman Show that she came out as trans “halfway through my educational career,” which “exposed me to a lot of different kinds of activists.”
“While teaching, I got more and more into anti-fascist activism,” he said, adding that “you could call me Antifa.”
“I was really kind of a nerd, doing a lot of research and contributing to a blog and, you know, exposing white supremacists, extremist group types like the Proud Boys,” he said.
“I did that for a couple of years and then, you know, between activism and teaching and living, I just got burned out on everything and quit and walked away from that whole scene.”
She joined Colorado Springs Indy as a general assignment reporter focusing on “political extremism,” including white supremacist activity. She now writes for the Colorado Times Recorder.
His work has been praised as “invaluable” by Democratic Rep. Steven Woodrow.
The Colorado Antifa account was suspended after Elon Musk vowed to purge all accounts that incite violence.
The ban came amid a Twitter crackdown on accounts accused of inciting violence. Antifa is a movement that rose to prominence after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and often encourages attacks against right-wing targets it considers “fascist.”
Twitter has banned several far-left profiles apparently linked to Antifa, which has thousands of cells across the country. Pictured: Antifa activists prepare to burn an American flag at the inauguration of the Denver state capital in January 2021
The group is one of several banned far-left profiles apparently linked to Antifa, which has thousands of cells across the country.
A month earlier, Ngo shared his concerns about the group’s presence on Twitter in a reply to a post by Musk asking users to voice any issues with the site that he should address following its highly publicized acquisition.
Musk, who at one point opposed the bans and said he would reverse one on Donald Trump, responded by stating that “incitement to violence” in any measure, “will result in account suspension.”
As several accounts linked to the terror group were removed last week, members of a cell in Portland threatened fires and attacks on Tesla dealerships owned by Musk as a method of retaliation.
A post from the account in November 2022 stated: “A nationwide recall of all transphobic teeth has been issued.”
Beedle, a teacher-turned-reporter, has claimed that reports about her ties to the Colorado Antifa cell are “grossly inaccurate.”
Aside from various branches of Antifa, those suspended included an anti-fascist group that provides armed security for LGBTQ+ events in North Texas, and CrimethInc, a conservative collective that has criticized left-wing movements since the mid-1990s.
A contraction of the phrase ‘anti-fascist,’ Antifa refers to the group’s extensive network of far-left militants in all 50 United States and other countries, who oppose beliefs that members consider fascist, racist, or the views of right-wing extremists.
The group rose to prominence in 2016, following the election of Donald Trump, who in 2020, as he continued to appear in high-profile clashes across the country, sought to classify the movement as a terrorist organization.