Statistics provided by NoHomophobes.com show that online homophobia spiked the day after the US election on the 8th and 9th of November.
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Trans’ hotline report that their call volume tripled during the period.
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Alleged abusers cite Donald Trump’s victory during their reported attacks.
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Homophobia on Twitter reaches levels not seen since January 2014.
Bucking the downward trend of homophobia on Twitter, the Twitter homophobia monitor NoHomophobes.com recorded a staggering increase of homophobic tweets on the 8th and the 9th of November.
The monitoring service checks every tweet sent on the social network for one of four terms “faggot”, “no homo”, “so gay” and “dyke”. The website was created by the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, at the University of Alberta, to “show the prevalence of casual homophobia in our society.”
Since January 2014 the use of those terms has actually decreased to around 45,000 uses of the word “faggot” per week, however, on the 10th November, the term “faggot” was Tweeted over 32,000 times in just one day.
Doctor Kris Wells, pulled the data for the use of the word “Faggot” for us and it’s pretty grim reading,
• March 5 – 6,509 (times the word was used)
• April 3 – 11,406
• July 24 – 6,963
• August 14 – 7,209
• Sept 11 – 7,089
• Oct. 16 – 5,598
• Oct. 21 – 3,344
• Nov. 4 – 5,869
• Nov. 7 – 6,407
• Nov. 9 – 10,225
• Nov. 10 – 32,167
• Nov. 11 – 8,863
• Nov. 12 – 6,110
• Nov. 14 – 7,659
• Nov. 20 – 6,747
• Nov. 27 – 6,386
Commenting on the finds Dr Wells commented, “So we definitely see the reality of a Trump presidency kick in on Nov 10th, two days after the election”.
Donald Trump Cited
In fact, the spike of homophobic language on the two days around the US Election returned to levels found in April 2014. The Guardian noted that there was a spike in reports of hate crimes in the aftermath of the result. Many victims claimed that their alleged abusers cited Donald Trump’s victory as their reasoning for their attacks.
The national trans’ hotline, The Trans Lifeline, told the Guardian that call volume had tripled on the Tuesday into Wednesday morning.
There were numerous reports of death threats, physical assaults and anti-gay and anti-trans graffiti sprayed onto cars. One car had a note left on it which noted,
“Can’t wait until your ‘marriage’ is overturned by a real president,” read a sign left on a car in North Carolina. Gay families = burn in hell. Trump 2016.”
Another gay man was assaulted in an alley in Santa Monica who was told, “We got a new President you f***ing f****ts”.
Have you experienced a homophobic assault since the US election? Get in touch to share your experience.
Watch out as more and more hate crime is going to become a daily part of life.