LGBTQ-PHOBIA - STATUS REPORT - IN ISRAEL #9

Both this year and in 2020, since the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been a steady increase in the number of referrals relating to violence and hate on the internet. This year, the number of reports is about 53% of the total inquiries, compared to 2019, when the percentage of inquiries was about 50% - this means hundreds of additional inquiries this year.

Segmentation according to gender

This graph shows those who marked their gender identity. The trans community’s stands at about 41% of all referrals presented here. In addition, the relative percentage of harmful incidents to cisgender and transgender men stands at about 36.5% combined.

Cisgender women 9%

Cisgender men 22%

General community 28%

Gender Segmentation

Transgender men 14.5%

Transgender women 23%

Non-Binary/Doesn’t define themselves 3.5%

In 2021, members of the LGBTQ Community experienced numerous incidents of violence on social media: degrading videos and derogatory comments, offensive talkbacks, articles published across the net and private messages with offensive content mocking sexual orientation and / or gender identity. LGBTQ discrimination incidents directed towards community members also experienced one of the largest cyber events known to the LGBTQ community. About a month after a cyber-attack on the “Atraf” dating site, during which a file was published with records of over a million users, a message was sent to a significant number of members of the LGBTQ community with a sentence that caused terrible panic: "You are LGBTQ and therefore you are destroyed. You deserve severe punishment, death, and banishment from the land. Come to the yeshiva to repent. We would love you to convert into faith”. Sending this inciting and threatening message was experienced as a sense of intrusion, uncertainty, fear of being taken out of the closet and a real threat - all of which led to panic. Since there was no tailored response from the authorities, in light of this, within 24 hours, about 200 inquiries flooded the Nir Kats reporting center from people who reported it to us, and quite a few of them expressed emotional distress in face of the incitement. The cyberbullying department was established in 2018 to aid community members and in particular youth, who are more exposed than the general population to cyberbullying. During the years 2018-2020, the department operated as a pilot in cooperation with the Israeli Internet Association and the National Insurance Institute’s Foundation for Children and Youth at Risk, and as of 2021, the department is managed exclusively by the Aguda. As part of the program, volunteers actively locate and respond to LGBTQ discrimination phrases online, both publicly through voicing opposition to LGBTQ discrimination, and in person in front of the attacker. The main goal is to reduce and mitigate the LGBTQ discrimination discourse. Community coping