LGBTQ community: Is there a backlash in Europe?

A friend of mine was pelted with eggs while marching at an event during Pride Month in Berlin last July. When I expressed my concern, he was quick to dismiss the incident.

"It wasn't a big deal, and the police wouldn't have done anything anyway," he told me.

Official figures show that verbal and physical attacks against LGBTQ individuals are rising in Germany. And up to 90% of them could be unreported, according to Germany's Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD). And that's not the only worrying trend.

"The public discourse is worsening," says LSVD spokesperson Kerstin Thost, who uses non-binary pronouns.

"Transphobic statements have increased significantly, and we are seeing more and more disinformation campaigns and even baiting against our transgender parliamentarians," they told me in a video call.

Trans, queer rights still expanding

The German government recently approved the so-called self-determination law, making it easier for individuals to amend their gender on official documents. The change aims to help transgender, non-binary and intersex individuals. In the wake of the announcement of the bill last year, transphobic attacks had increased according to Thost of the German Lesbian and Gay Association.

But the rise in transphobic and queerphobic discourse may not be a reflection of society.

Over the last two decades, the legal landscape has improved dramatically for LGBTQ individuals in Germany, much like the rest of the European Union.

"There have been great reforms because the general population went beyond ignorance and saw in (LGBTQ) people, their own people themselves," says Miltos Pavlou of the European Union Agency for Fundamental rights.

"More people live better lives as LGBTQ persons more or less all over the European Union," Pavlou explains. However he points out that "a considerable part of the LGBT[I]Q  community still suffers violence, harassment and discrimination."

Despite improvements in social acceptance even in conservative societies, transgender and intersex individuals in particular are likelier to experience attacks and discrimination than cisgendered LGBTQ people, he notes.

"The anti-LGBTQ lobby has a lot of influence at the moment, but that does not yet reflect on societal changes," says Remy Bonny, Executive Director of LGBTQ advocacy NGO Forbidden Colors.

Global movement fights LGBTQ rights

Human rights advocate Neil Datta has been researching the movement's activities in Europe. He estimates that funding for "anti-gender" activities exceeded $100 million a year in 2021 and 2022. That is much higher than the decade before. Between 2009 and 2018, Datta, who is the Executive Director of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, helped identify where the funds spent on "anti-gender" activities in the EU were coming from.

The LGBTQ community has become one of the most targeted groups of people by misinformation and disinformation campaigns online, according to a report by the European Digital Media Observatory last May.

The narratives have been linked to what some have dubbed the "anti-gender movement" — a network that includes some churches, US evangelicals, far-right parties, members of the US Republican party and state-sponsored NGOs campaigning against LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights. 

While LGBTQ groups have focused more on attaining rights in their own countries, anti-LGBTQ groups have been mobilizing and forming broad international coalitions over the last two decades, according to human rights advocate Remy Bonny. That has allowed them to exchange experiences and knowledge, including strategies to spread anti-LGBTQ narratives in other parts of the world.

This is why there are recurring themes in their disinformation campaigns, in particular references to grooming and recruitment of children into the LGBTQ community. And while these ideas have no scientific basis, sex education that includes queer sexual identities in schools is increasingly a contentious topic in both Europe and the US.

Russia's role in promoting queerphobia

Moscow used fears over grooming and recruitment of children to enact its "gay propaganda law" a decade ago. In 2012, the Kremlin had mentioned attacks on traditional families as one of the biggest threats to Russian national security. Other countries have since then followed suit. Hungary and Poland are two examples, and so is Florida's "Don't say gay" law in the US.

Russian oligarchs provided "seed money" for groups that continue to carry on anti-LGBTQ campaigns in the EU, says Datta. Just over a quarter of the roughly €707 million ($768 million) that funded anti-gender activities in the bloc between 2009 and 2018 originated from Russia, he adds. And while sanctions have led to a huge drop in funds, Russia continues to influence Europe's human rights discourse on LGBTQ issues.

"There's a greater amount of hatred and questioning of (LGBTQ) rights that exists compared to maybe five and definitely 10 years ago," says Datta.

Despite the improvements in social acceptance in the last decade, Europe may very well be at an inflection point when it comes to LGBTQ rights today as a result of Russia's anti-LGTBQ campaigns. 

However, the Kremlin's main aim isn't to target queer and trans Europeans, but to destabilize European democracies, says Datta. He fears that the rising politicization of LGBTQ rights may lead to efforts to roll them back, depending on who is in government.

The toxic nature of the discourse and its capacity to polarize is making it harder for political parties both on the left and right to work together. That's because they are increasingly adopting more hardline stances on issues, as are people on social media.

That's why it's difficult to say whether the rise in attacks is a reflection of a backlash, or perhaps an indication that more people are reporting such incidents. Whatever the case, experts say that any attack is one too many.

And LGBTQ rights go beyond the protection of queer and trans individuals from discrimination. Brussels-based human rights advocate Bonny believes they are now a national security issue for liberal democracies in Europe

"The fact that the defense of LGBTQ rights isn't prioritized as a national security risk means that Europe is not able to fight back with equal means," Bonny says.

Edited by: Rob Mudge