LGBTQ community’s fight for human rights despite online threats

Despite increasingly frequent online and offline attacks, members of the US LGBTQ community are participating in this year’s Pride celebration. According to Reuters, demonstrators are fighting efforts to limit their rights. Jay Ulfelder, a political scientist and data scientist at Harvard University, has been tracking anti-LGBTK protests since 2017, and he notes that they are on the rise.

According to a report by the Center to Counter Digital Hate (CCDH) and the Human Rights Campaign, there was a 406% increase in tweet edits after the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law was enacted in March 2022. CCDH statistics uncover that the narrative was uncommon before the law’s passage. Princeton University’s research director, Joel Day, highlighted the difficulty of proving a causal link between online and offline attacks. However, they reinforce each other. Online swearing and insults are becoming mainstream discourse.

Kimberly Balsam, professor of psychology and LGBTQ-focused researcher at Palo Alto University, stated that the detrimental impacts of online and offline attacks cannot be separated and are closely linked. Brigitte Bandit, a Texas drag performer, says she received a lot of hate online last year. Her social media feed frequently includes accounts that post explicit photographs and describe her as hazardous to children who have seen this material online.