California man faces federal charges for anti-LGBT+ threats against Merriam-Webster

Federal prosecutors have accused a California man of targeting the oldest dictionary publisher in the US with violent, anti-LGBT+ threats that reportedly forced the company’s offices to close for five days.

A criminal complaint issued in US District Court in Massachusetts alleges that 34-year-old Jeremy David Hanson wrote threatening comments through Merriam-Webster’s website and in the comments section for entries related to “woman” and “female,” including suggesting the authors should be “hunted down and shot” and wishing employees “should all be killed.”

“There is no such thing as ‘gender identity,’” he wrote in 2021 under the entry for “female,” according to prosecutors. “The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.”

A message Mr Hanson reportedly sent through the website’s “contact us” page said the company’s headquarters “should be shot up and bombed.”