Remarks: Chaya Raichik

Editor’s note: The following is a transcript of Chaya Raichik’s remarks upon receiving the Resilience Award, delivered at the 2023 Annual Awards Gala.

Larry O’Connor: Good evening. What an honor to be even in this room tonight. Incredible. You know how in school they always say, oh, imagine what it would have been like if women had been the founding mothers of our country, right? And they always imagine women that I would not want forming our country. The fact of the matter is if we had founding mothers, those women are represented right here in this room tonight. They’re at the table with you. They get it. I have the honor every morning, you know, when you spend time, a lot of time, with women in your work life, you know what I’m talking, about five hours a morning you spend, starting at 4 a.m., these are very testy times, I could say, you really get to know them and you get inspired by them, and they make, well, in my case, I’m fortunate enough that they make me a much better person. I want to just take a quick moment to acknowledge, you know them already because they’re members of Independent Women’s Forum, the incredible Julie Gunlock. Stand up Jules, stand up Julie. The dynamic Patrice Onwuka. Oh, she’s wearing pink—there’s a shock. And a woman who I’ve worked with for 12 years now and has literally given me my voice and makes me a better human being every single day, the producer of our show and a senior fellow at Independent Women’s Forum, Heather Hunter. Heather is stuck in traffic. Oh, there she is. Hello, Heather. Their energy, and enthusiasm, and intelligence, and courage is intoxicating. It shouldn’t take courage to be a woman and stray from the set path that has been designated by the academia, and intelligentsia, and the media, and the entertainment world in this country, but it does. And courage is intoxicating. And if courage is intoxicating, Chaya Raichik is a Long Island iced tea. A double. Chaya Raichik began in anonymity, creating a social media account called LibsofTikTok. It was a hobby. It was a pandemic. What else are you going to do? You see what these insane people are doing on TikTok? People on Twitter aren’t looking at it. You take some of the videos, look at these idiots. That hobby turned into a cultural and political shift in the United States of America. I’m not overstating the case when I say that if it weren’t for Chaya Raichik and the work that she did on LibsofTikTok, I don’t think the majority of Americans would really know how our children are being targeted on a daily basis by predators, predators under the guise of warped gender ideology. And she didn’t even intend to do this. It’s pretty amazing. And through the cloak of anonymity, Chaya was able to shine a light on what was being said in the dark reaches of social media, and she was criticized for actually telling the world what everyone else was voluntarily putting out there for the world to see. All she did was shine a light on what was out there, and they tried to destroy her life. An insidious little journalist, employee in good standing at the Washington Post, aren’t you proud, Jeff Bezos, exposed her identity maliciously to try to ruin her life, to try to silence her. She made her stronger. She made her unstoppable. Chaya Raichik is a force of nature. And on a personal level, I would like to thank her for providing some really great radio show content for us. We need to fill in some gaps here – let’s see what LibsofTikTok has. Okay. We got a half-hour. Let’s go. Chaya Raichik didn’t intend to be here tonight. She was just fine staying within the comfort of anonymity, telling the world exactly the intentions of the radical progressive left in this country. But now we know who she is and we are a better country knowing the name Chaya Raichik. I am beyond honored to present this award to the incredible Chaya Raichik.

Chaya Raichik: Okay. Thank you, Larry, for that generous introduction. You know, sometimes I hear all these accolades and I look in the mirror and I wonder to myself, are they really talking about me? How did a girl from Brooklyn wind up here tonight, winning an award in front of hundreds of people? I’m humbled and honored to be here at IWF and to receive the Resilience Award in the presence of so many incredible individuals. Everybody in this room is here tonight because they believe in freedom, opportunity, and truth. When the organizers called me and informed me that they would like to honor me with the Resilience Award, it got me thinking. What is resilience? Where does resilience come from? How can one become resilient? I pondered these questions and reflected on my own journey, which led me to this podium today. Let me give you a quick recap. About two-and-a-half years ago, I started an anonymous Twitter, or now called X, account called LibsofTikTok. I would share videos of radical leftists and activists in their own words. I simply held up a mirror to what they themselves were saying. It started getting really popular and the content would go viral. The left just could not handle seeing their own reflection. So, what did they do? They tried to shut me down by hitting me where it would hurt the most. They knew I wanted to be anonymous. So, they sent a reporter to my door, to my home, to dox me. Now, let me give you a glimpse into what that was like. It was terrifying. One day I opened my phone, only to be bombarded with messages from this reporter who was intent on revealing my identity. I had always feared that this might happen one day. So, after a tumultuous few days, they finally published an article with my name. I was no longer anonymous and I now had a target on my back. It was the most chaotic week of my life. But if you think that’s the only hurdle I went through, you’d be wrong, because there’s more. Let me talk about the suspensions and big tech censorship. Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, every single morning I would wake up and hold my breath as I opened Twitter to see if I still had my Twitter account with my millions of followers. I was dreading the day where I would get permanently suspended. Thank goodness that never ended up happening. Elon saved me. I only got about seven temporary Twitter suspensions. I was suspended from Linktree, from Slack, from various softwares, and Instagram and Facebook permanently suspended me before eventually reversing it after backlash. If all those suspensions weren’t enough, in between all this I’m receiving dozens of death threats and vile messages a week, and some of them even involving the police. But wait, there’s more. The left saw that all of this wasn’t working to break me. So, they came up with a new tactic, blaming me for bomb threats. They claimed I inspired bomb threats and violence by simply exposing what was going on in your kids’ schools. I’ve been blamed for dozens of bomb threats at this point. Suddenly, half the country thought I was a terrorist. They even created a new slur for me called stochastic terrorist. I’m still not even quite sure what that means. Various media outlets and organizations came out with statements framing me as a dangerous terrorist. I mean, you tell me, do I look like a terrorist to you? Thank you. Quite relieved. So, after all this, I could have easily given up. It would have been easy to. So, now comes the million-dollar question that a lot of you are probably thinking: Why didn’t I? What drives me to continue to do all this work? My parents instilled in me a set of morals and a sense of right and wrong. They taught me to fight for my convictions and try to make the world a better place. But the real reason why I’ll never give up is because I honestly can’t bring myself to give the left that satisfaction. But look what happened as a result of staying focused on LibsofTikTok’s mission: I was able to impact legislation across the country to protect children. The media gave me credit for influencing various laws including banning sex change surgeries for minors, banning sexual adult-themed entertainment for children, and banning gender ideology from schools. I’ve gotten multiple teachers fired for promoting radical leftwing agendas. For example, there was an elementary school teacher in Utah who was fired after I posted her own video in her own words where she spoke about encouraging her students to be queer. Additionally, I’ve gotten many schools across the country to remove graphic sexual books from their libraries. Now, people across the country reach out to me to share their stories about what’s going on in their schools, workplaces, and communities. For simply showing people what the left themselves were saying and doing, I was attacked every step of the way. It’s been quite a journey. And I realize, after all this, that resilience comes from within yourself. When you’re fighting a good cause, speaking truth, and standing up for what’s right, people will come after you. It takes resilience to stay strong and forge ahead. And this is not just about me. This is about all of you. Every one of you has the ability to stand up and speak the truth. We see today more than ever that basic truths and morals are under attack. We live in a world where a large portion of the population don’t know right from wrong, where a Supreme Court justice doesn’t know the meaning of the word woman, where medical professionals think men can get pregnant. Thanks to the work of the Independent Women’s Forum, and many of you in this room, change and sanity is finally on the horizon. Every one of you can make a change and make a difference. And at times it’s not going to be easy. They’ll try to break you, like they did to me and countless others. You can get through it, though, if you dig deep inside yourself and find your courage, find your resilience, and find your strength. So, when you leave here tonight, I want you all to remember that you have the strength within yourself to stand up for the truth. And just about the time that you feel like giving up is exactly the time that you need to fight back harder. Thank you, Independent Women’s Forum, and everyone here for this incredible honor.