Protesters shouted the mantra “Trans lives matter! Trans lives matter!” over and over as they interrupted CNN’s LGBT presidential town hall on Thursday night, waving around the pink, white, and blue transgender equality flag and shouting down the speakers. CNN host Anderson Cooper backed down to the protesters, praising the “long history of protest in the LGBT community” and basically acquiescing to their fierce insistence that transgender people are being slaughtered en masse. The 2020 Democrats are on board with the narrative too.

Presidential contender Pete Buttigieg used his next question to applaud the protests, check his own privilege as a “white cisgender male” and talked about how hard it must be to be a transgender woman of color. Earlier in the night, Cory Booker said “the suffering of so many LGBTQ people is shrouded in the ignorance and hate of this world” when talking about transgender deaths, clearly tying the violence to bigotry. Plus, when Kamala Harris was on stage, a protester shouted out, “How do we make them stop killing us? We’re being systematically hunted.” This narrative would send chills down the spine of any person with a heart and make you think transgender people are in grave danger.