Five-year overview of the online and offline anti-LGBTQ+ landscape

The report documents a surge in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes, book bans, and restrictive legislation in Western countries, noting a convergence of extremist ideologies. It highlights how tech platforms exacerbate these harms through the rollback of protections, the overmoderation of LGBTQ+ content via AI and safety legislation, and the rise of coordinated harassment campaigns like 'transvestigation'.

• Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes have increased in the US, UK, and Europe, with transgender and gender nonconforming individuals being particularly targeted. In the US, over 20 percent of hate crimes were motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias for three consecutive years as of 2024. In the UK, ISD calculated that between 2020 and 2025, anti-trans hate crimes rose by 50 percent and sexual orientation crimes rose by 18.1 percent.
• There is a significant increase in legislative and government actions targeting LGBTQ+ rights. The ACLU tracked 616 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the US as of October 2025, with restrictions on student and educator rights being the most common. In Europe, setbacks include the 2025 banning of pride events in Hungary and Russian legislation from 2024 designating the LGBTQ+ movement as an extremist organisation.
• Book bans targeting LGBTQ+ content have risen sharply, particularly in the US, where 10,046 books were banned in 2023-2024, with 39 percent featuring LGBTQ+ characters. In the UK, a 2024 study found that 53 percent of surveyed librarians had been asked to remove books, with most censorship attempts targeting LGBTQ+ content.
• Violence against LGBTQ+ individuals is driven by a diverse spectrum of extremist ideologies, including Islamist extremists, neo-Nazis, and Christian far-right actors. Examples include a 2022 neo-Nazi shooting at a queer bar in Colorado and a 2022 shooting by an IS-pledged attacker at bars in Oslo.
• Tech platforms are increasingly failing to protect LGBTQ+ users through both under-moderation of hate and over-moderation of identity. Meta updated its Hateful Content policy in January 2025 to allow narratives claiming homosexuality and transgender identity are mental illnesses. Simultaneously, AI-driven moderation and legislation like the UK's Online Safety Act and the US's FOSTA have led to the erasure of LGBTQ+ online spaces and the misclassification of queer content as 'adult' or 'explicit'.
• The 'transvestigator' phenomenon involves coordinated efforts to falsely prove public figures are transgender, often overlapping with far-right conspiracy theories. Targets have included Brigitte Macron, Jacinda Ardern, Michelle Obama, and Kamala Harris, disproportionately affecting women in public roles, especially nonwhite women.

APA

Fiennes, G., & Matlach, P.-C. (2026). Five-year overview of the online and offline anti-LGBTQ+ landscape. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/investigation-five-year-overview-of-the-online-and-offline-anti-lgbtq-landscape/

Chicago

Fiennes, Guy, and Paula-Charlotte Matlach. Five-year overview of the online and offline anti-LGBTQ+ landscape. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2026. https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/investigation-five-year-overview-of-the-online-and-offline-anti-lgbtq-landscape/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Fiennes |first1=Guy |last2=Matlach |first2=Paula-Charlotte |title=Five-year overview of the online and offline anti-LGBTQ+ landscape |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=2 February 2026 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/investigation-five-year-overview-of-the-online-and-offline-anti-lgbtq-landscape/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{fiennes2026fiveyear, author = {Fiennes, Guy and Matlach, Paula-Charlotte}, title = {{Five-year overview of the online and offline anti-LGBTQ+ landscape}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2026}, month = feb, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/investigation-five-year-overview-of-the-online-and-offline-anti-lgbtq-landscape/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }