This post has been in my drafts for ages whilst I was overthinking it, but in light of Reform's antics...
Existing as a Scottish Gael/Latina (Venezuelan diaspora) should make one eligible for a PhD in linguistic racism, and I am convinced there is something uniquely weird going on with anti-Gaelic bigotry in the Anglosphere.
In my personal observation, concern-trolling about other heritage languages (in the US and Europe) tends to be generic pro-assimilation talking points. The subject of the concern-trolling is that time spent speaking the heritage language (and presumably doing associated cultural things) is time that should be spent speaking the dominant language and assimilating to the dominant culture. I've also noticed that unless you're talking to rancid ethnonationalist types who hate cultural diversity on principle, the concern-trolling can be shut down by talking about how bilingual people are more employable or do better in school or suchlike.
Anti-Gaelic bullshit runs on a different logic, and the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's is a load-bearing wall in the Anglosphere colonialism construct in a way I don't fully understand but is important (see: Reform antics). Keeping in mind that these are my non-academic personal observations, and that the plural of anecdote is not data:
Anti-Gaelic rhetoric includes (and often focuses on) on the idea that Gaelic is some sort of special infohazard language that is not like other languages*. Ones I've heard include Gaelic road signs causing road accidents (no in the 'people will miss their turnoff', but as in 'seeing a Gaelic sign as psychic damage' sense), messing up someone's ability to differentiate fantasy from reality, and messing up someone's ability to learn to read or write.
I've seen the 'raising your kids in your language/culture is abusive' argument deployed against North American Native people, but (again, anecdotally) it still goes heavy on the assimilationist/cultural superiority/'employable skills' rhetoric**.
However, I have never heard even extreme ethnonationalists in the United States making claims that Spanish breaks peoples brains, or their Canadian counterparts claiming that French labels on groceries are a hazard to innocent shoppers.
Anti-Gaelic sentiment hops borders in a way I haven't seen for other linguistic racism***. I've encountered white people in North America who shared unhinged anti-Gaelic takes apropos of nothing, and then double down on it with a surprising degree of emotional investment. Besides hopping borders, I've also noticed it hopping political lines. There's white liberals/leftists who will support bilingual education or the importance of heritage languages in other contexts will do a complete 180 once Gaelic is in the picture.
Anti-Gaelic sentiment is (almost) exclusive to white people. Whilst I have encountered a few immigrants in Scotland repeating misinformation, or BritNat pick-mes, they seem like outliers. I cannot think of an instance where I heard this stuff from a non-white person in the Americas (or even a white Latino) -- in fact, people are generally very positive.
I don't have a grand conclusion here, just a growing sense that this is a thread we need to collectively pull.
*The 'not like other languages' concept comes up in other contexts too
**North Americans, if people are making 'this language melts peoples' brains' claims about your Indigenous languages, let me know!
***If I'm completely off-based and there are (to make some random examples) people in England randomly complaining about Maori, or people in Australia complaining about Plains Cree and I'm just oblivious, let me know!
