Texas man gets 3 months in prison for threatening doctor who treats trans patients

A Texas man who left a threatening voicemail for a doctor at the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center in Boston, Massachusetts, has been sentenced to three months in prison.

In December, Matthew Jordan Lindner of Comfort, Texas, pleaded guilty to one count of interstate transmission of threatening communication. The charge stemmed from a message Linder left on the Boston clinic’s voicemail.

Related: Texas man faces federal charges after allegedly threatening to “burn” gender-affirming doctor

“You’ve woken up enough people. And upset enough of us,” the man allegedly said. “You signed your own [death] warrant.”

“You suck motherfu***rs, you’re all gonna burn,” Linder said in the August 31, 2022, message.

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As Boston.com reported, Lindner believed false online reports claiming that a doctor associated with the center who provides healthcare for transgender and gender nonconforming young people was “castrating our children.”

In his voicemail, Linder claimed that there was “a group of people on their way to handle” the doctor, whom he named.

“You signed your own warrant, lady,” Linder continued. “Castrating our children. You’ve woken up enough people. And upset enough of us. And you signed your own ticket. Sleep well, you fu****g c**t.”

Linder also reportedly tried to contact the doctor multiple times after leaving his August 31 voicemail.  

Linder was arrested and charged in December 2022. Last week, a federal court in Boston sentenced him to three months in prison and three years of supervised release. The 39-year-old was also ordered to pay $2,986 in restitution, according to Boston.com.

“Imagine the terror of having your life threatened for just doing your job. Matthew Lindner accosted a physician for doing exactly that, and in doing so instilled unnecessary fear in the medical community,” Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field office said last week. “Hateful, repulsive, and threatening behavior like this has no place here, and today’s sentence demonstrates that we won’t stand for criminals terrorizing innocent people. Nobody should have to fear becoming the target of vitriol-fueled violence.”

Lindner’s and other death threats against gender-affirming medical providers have been inspired by misleading, far-right online reports claiming doctors are “mutilating” “gender-confused” children. In reality, gender-affirming surgeries are by-and-large only recommended for adults over the legal age of consent, and are rarely, if ever, performed on trans youth.

Threats and harassment directed at doctors, hospitals, and other institutions have been linked to misinformation proliferated by anti-LGBTQ+ social media accounts like Libs of TikTok. In November, USA Today published a report showing a correlation between Libs of TikTok’s anti-LGBTQ+ posts and incidents of bomb threats, death threats, and other forms of harassment aimed at the specific hospitals, schools, libraries, and individuals the account targets. Media Matters has also documented 36 instances of threats and harassment directed at various institutions after Libs of TikTok targeted them.

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