Experts have long explored what has come to be known as the “lesbian wage premium” – the fact that on average, lesbians around the world earn about 9% more than heterosexual women. The number is even higher in the United States, with lesbians earning about 20% more than straight women.
In a recent video, TikToker Aria Velz analyzed several studies to explain why this might be. “We can start at the obvious,” she said, “lesbians tend to be more educated than straight women, are less likely to have children, live more predominantly in cities, and have more professional jobs.”
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But she explained that even when controlling for all of that, lesbians still earn more. So she brought up another hypothesis: Women in heterosexual relationships are still expected to take on more emotional and domestic labor than men, whereas lesbians tend to more equally share those duties. As such, heterosexual women are more likely to sacrifice career advancement for domestic responsibilities.
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Velz also pointed to studies that show lesbians who have lived with a previous male spouse make less money than lesbians who have never lived with a man.
“The lesson here is not that lesbians are better at making money,” she said. “It reconfirms that the domestic labor situation at home contributes to how women earn more outside the home – and lesbians have just learned that lesson first.”
But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Despite the extra earnings for lesbians, Slate pointed out in 2015 (when the lesbian wage premium was first identified), that lesbians were still a lot are likely to be poor than straight women as well as the general population. And because women in general still make less than men, two women in a couple still tend to miss out on key earnings.
As Slate put it, “Any benefits to being lesbian are canceled out when couples’ earnings are considered in aggregate—there, lesbians fare the worst of anyone.”
When Jenny Fran Davis set out to write her second book, she had already tasted literary success with her debut novel, 2017’s young adult coming-of-age story “Everything Must Go.” But instead of following her previous book’s proven path to acclaim, the queer 25-year-old author chose to write an adult fiction title that would probe the “interior world of femme characters.” In the end, the unapologetically titled “Dykette” — a comedy of manners centering on a desperately self-conscious femme lesbian named Sasha — became one of the most buzzworthy titles of 2023, demonstrating a growing fervor for LGBTQ fiction that is transforming the book world.
“This book really came along at a time where we’re in this renaissance of gay literature. There was an immediate audience that wanted to accept it with open arms. There was a receptiveness that I don’t know would have been there five years before,” Davis told NBC News, drawing a contrast between 2023 and the year her first novel came out. “Just the title alone would have been scarier for publishers even five or 10 years ago, but there was definitely this sense of, ‘People want this now,’ and I think publishers are always looking for what readers want.”
The release of “Dykette” (Henry Holt and Co.) in May coincides with a yearslong surge in the popularity of LGBTQ fiction, which continues to drive sales even as the broader fiction market slows in the wake of the Covid-19 book boom. Beginning with a smaller but noticeable uptick in 2019, those sales reached record figures this year, resulting in 6.1 million units flying off shelves in the 12-month period ending in May.
And the numbers are holding strong: In the 12-month period ending in October 2023, LGBTQ fiction sales reached 4.4 million units, up 7% from the prior 12-month period and 200% from the 12-month period ending in October 2019, according to exclusive data provided to NBC News by Circana BookScan. In contrast, the data showed that total fiction sales were down 3% in that latest year-over-year time period and up just 27% in the four-year span.
“There’s been LGBTQIA fiction forever, but what really makes this different over the last five years is that those storylines have been moving from a more niche area of fiction into the mainstream,” Kristen McLean, Circana’s lead book industry analyst, told NBC News of what she calls a “generational story.”
More than just migrating from the margins, queer fiction titles are thriving against a backdrop of record attempts to censor works by and about the LGBTQ community. This meteoric rise, according to McLean and other industry experts, is due to a confluence of factors, including younger readers’ openness toward issues of gender and identity, a new generation of writers employing queer themes and, perhaps most importantly, the pandemic-era rise of TikTok’s literary-minded arm.
‘Different flavors of storytelling’
After a tumultuous few years, it may not be surprising that fiction is the genre driving sales of LGBTQ books, as opposed to the less-transportive nonfiction space. A more elusive part of the narrative, however, is what’s bringing in new buyers of queer fiction. To answer that, McLean pointed to the fact that varying styles of fiction books carrying an “LGBTQ+” tag — or BISAC code, the U.S. book industry’s three-tiered book categorization system — are reaching readers in record numbers.
“It used to be that the only books carrying an LGBTQIA tag very specifically had that storyline front and center, and that is giving way to all kinds of different flavors of storytelling,” she said, noting what she sees as a “broadening of perspectives” that’s attracting new and less traditional readers of queer fiction.
Now, “we see growth in fantasy, in general fiction, in sci-fi, and that really speaks to the richness of the story world and the fact that these things are cross-pollinating,” she added of books that carry “LGBTQ+” as their secondary BISAC code.
To McLean’s point, there wasn’t just one type of queer fiction title that captured the popular imagination this year. Following in the footsteps of Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper,” the screen adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s young adult hit “Red, White & Royal Blue” was a wild success. Sapphic titles like “Dykette” and Tembe Denton-Hurst’s “Homebodies” repeatedly topped 2023’s most-anticipated and best-of lists. And Justin Torres’ genre-defying work “Blackouts” took home the coveted National Book Award for fiction last month, while Eliot Duncans “Ponyboy” was reportedly the first book with a transgender protagonistto be longlisted for the prize.
Even bookstore aisles are starting to look different because of the way queer themes are appearing in a variety of texts, according to Suzi F. Garcia, editor of the LGBTQ nonprofit Lambda Literary.
“As access to these kinds of books has grown, we’re seeing more nuances come forward. So it’s not just an LGBTQ shelf in a bookstore anymore. They’re taking up room on every shelf,” Garcia said of queer titles in general. “You’re seeing writers from other genres getting interested in exploring fiction, because they see it as a more gay-friendly space. You see a lot more cross-genre writers too, and they’re bringing their audiences with them.”
Because of those new audiences, Garcia added, publishers across the industry are expected to have LGBTQ titles in their catalogs, lest they lose sales to smaller operations that specifically cater to fans of queer fiction. And increasingly, according to McLean and others, that has meant mining unexplored spaces like self-publishing for fresh talent, as well as paying attention to what young readers are posting about on BookTok.
A next-generation book club
BookTok, the corner of TikTok dedicated to literature, began gaining traction in the early days of the pandemic, when homebound readers started consuming and posting about books en masse. Progressively, that led to a growing number of BookTokers — who skew younger, more male and more diverse than the average book-buying population, according to Circana — discussing genres within fiction, like romance and fantasy, which have thrived on the platform. And industry watchers have not hesitated to connect that interest to recent sales trends.
“Most of the authors that are growing in the romance space right now are next-generation authors, and it’s closely tied to BookTok,” McLean said of writers like McQuiston and Oseman, who — along with Mo Xiang Tong Xiu and Rick Riordan — are among the year’s top-selling writers of LGBTQ fiction, according to Circana. “In fact, we see a lot of these authors taking share from romance bestsellers like Nora Roberts, Debbie Macomber or Nicholas Sparks.”
Kevin Norman, a BookTok influencer with nearly 250,000 followers, is quick to agree that social media engagement is what’s driving sales of queer fiction specifically. He attributes the popularity of genres like romance, fantasy and “romantasy” in print and on social media to the way that younger readers have learned to use platforms like TikTok to advocate for the books they love.
“Romance was a genre that, for a long time, got shunned and [was] not taken seriously. With social media, people are now able to talk about their favorite niche books and bring them to the mainstream,” Normansaid, adding that TikTok “really made books cool.”
To some, it may seem like a leap to say that posting about books on social media is translating to print sales, but the numbers show an overlap between genres that are popular on BookTok and those driving trends.In June, Circana reported that romance titles accounted for 30% of the uptick in LGBTQ fiction sales, and, according to Circana’s data for NBC News, romance was among the highest-selling LGBTQ categories in both adult and young adult fiction as of the end of October.
Booksellers — like Leah Koch, co-owner of the bicoastal romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice — also say they can see the influence of younger readers not just online, but in their shops, too.
“People age into the romance genre every year, but this happened a lot more rapidly. All of them just joined at once, basically,” Koch said, describing BookTok as “a new generation’s form of a book club.”
The Ripped Bodice is a romance bookstore with locations in New York and Los Angeles.Madeline Derujinsky
“More importantly, they actually buy books. They’re not just talking about them or taking pictures,” Koch said. “It has an actual economic consequence on our sales, on the type of people who are coming into the store, on the books that they’re asking for.”
It isn’t just new romance titles that younger readers are buying. Among many BookTokers, there’s a fervor for rediscovering older works, which has significantly bolstered sales of a number of backlist titles, including Colleen Hoover’s works and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2017 sapphic sensation, “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.” And some up-and-coming influencers are going in a different direction altogether.
Zoë Jackson — a BookTok influencer with almost 65,000 followers and the founder of a book club dedicated to “complicated female characters” — says she’s been successful on social media specifically because she recommends “indie” LGBTQ fiction like Sarah Rose Etter’s surreal novel “Ripe,” rather than blockbuster romances.
“For a while, the main queer books that were being talked about [on TikTok] were the few big queer romances that, at this point, are ubiquitous,” Jackson told NBC News, naming Madeline Miller’s 2011 Trojan War retelling, “Song of Achilles,” and “Red, White & Royal Blue.” “I love those books too, but people like to see things they don’t see right when they walk into Barnes & Noble.”
Beyond ‘token acceptance’
While powerful, the rise of BookTok hasn’t meant that traditional publishers, and many of the ways they do business, have been upended completely. But, according to Michael Reynolds — the editor-in-chief of independent publisher Europa Editions, which released this year’s standout erotic text in K. Patrick’s debut novel, “Mrs. S” — the rising interest in LGBTQ fiction is putting pressure on publishers to be much more active in that space.
“When the book industry sees that there’s segments of the market in growth, then it tends to run off to that segment,” Reynolds said. “I think that’s what we’re seeing now, in terms of the output on the publishing side of things.”
Reynolds, whose tenure has brought “My Brilliant Friend” author Elena Ferrante to the English-speaking world, said that while traditional publishing has been famously good at ignoring audiences for decades, once it senses an appetite for certain kinds of books, its added value is “ferreting out talent” and getting quality works on the shelves. But, he acknowledged, the key part of that process is having a readership that’s then willing to buy those works.
“One of the nice things about the moment we’re living through is that it’s not simply token acceptance; it’s commercial success,” he said. “It really does make a difference — that bottom line — when you’re doing something new.”
Kendall Storey is the editor-in-chief at Catapult, which released two of the year’s most talked-about works of sapphic literary fiction: Marisa Crane’s “I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself” and Ruth Madievsky’s “All-Night Pharmacy.” She said she views the way the publishing industry is adapting to the fervor for queer fiction as a fairly predictable course correction.
“To say that we’re seeing more and more successful books exploring issues of gender and queerness is to say that literature is doing what it’s always done, which is representing different experiences and ways of seeing over time,” Storey said, noting that almost half of Catapult’s 10 bestsellers from last year were LGBTQ titles, up from just one in 2021.
While publishers seem optimistic about how rising LGBTQ fiction sales reflect on their sector at large, others in the book world are critical of how long it’s taken the industry to get to this point and are eager to see more steps forward.
“If you were to look at the queer shelves when we opened in 2016, like 99% of [the books] were from indie presses or self-published. There were very few traditionally published queer romances; I could probably count them on one hand,” Koch, the Ripped Bodice co-owner, said.
“Seven and a half years later, they’re still only doing a couple a year. That adds up to a lot of books, but we’re still really early in the life cycle of this,” she added, referring to traditional publishers’ hesitancy to invest in a larger array of LGBTQ fiction.
Like Koch, Garcia from Lambda Literary is eager to see publishers meet the moment by encouraging authors to take risks and further experiment with genre and form as part of the next phase in queer fiction’s evolution. Looking forward to next year, she said, “I’m hoping that’s what we see: a lot more audacity from fiction.”
New data shows a record-breaking number of businesses are displaying true LGBTQ+ allyship to their employees, proving they “aren’t buying” mounting anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation issued its Corporate Equality Index (CEI) this week, and determined that the workforce is “more allied than ever before.”
The CEI, launched by the HRC Foundation in 2002, is a survey that measures company policies and practices regarding LGBTQ+ equality.
In its first year, 319 businesses participated to determine if their policies were up to scratch. This year, 1,384 companies took part in the review – and the results were overwhelmingly positive.
The CEI reports that a record-breaking 95 per cent of businesses reviewed have non-discrimination protections in place specifically regarding gender identity. That’s an exceptional jump from 2002’s five per cent.
A record-breaking number of businesses are displaying true LGBTQ+ allyship to their employees. (Getty Images/PinkNews)
Equally as promising is the 94 per cent of businesses that offer transgender-inclusive health insurance coverage to employees, compared to 0 per cent in 2002.
Noting that these exceptional figures come at a time when the LGBTQ+ community is under attack by people “hoping to eradicate our identity and push us back in the closet”, HRC President Kelley Robinson said that it looks like “businesses aren’t buying it.”
“The future workforce is more out and allied than ever before in our nation’s history, and this year’s CEI shows a business community looking for ways to further support LGBTQ+ workers and their families,” she added.
This year’s review also found that 70 per cent of CEI-rated businesses have guidelines and supportive policies and guidance in place to pro-actively support employees going through a gender transition, as well as their managers and colleagues.
And 63 per cent of the businesses have policies that ensure a safe and affirming environment for transgender and non-binary employees, including trans-inclusive or all-gender restrooms, gender-neutral dress codes, and how an employee’s information, such as name and pronouns, is displayed.
Of the businesses reviewed by the HRC Foundation this year, an impressive 545 companies scored a perfect 100 and will be honored with HRC’s Equality 100 Award as Leaders in LGBTQ+ Workplace Inclusion.
Companies that took part in the CEI rating range from Fortune magazine’s 500 largest publicly traded businesses, American Lawyer magazine’s top 200 revenue-grossing law firms (AmLaw 200), and hundreds of publicly and privately held mid- to large-sized businesses.
Among the companies that earned a perfect score were household names like Apple Inc., AMC Entertainment, Dominos Pizza Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Google Inc., Mars Inc., Paramount, Pfizer Inc., Visa, and Warner Music Group – to name but a few.
Commenting on this year’s optimistic findings, Rashawn Hawkins, the HRC’s Senior Director of Workplace Equality, said: “For well over two decades, businesses have played an important role in furthering LGBTQ+ equality by centering employee needs and voices when it comes to workplace inclusion.
“While there is much more work to be done, year-over-year growth in CEI participation is evidence of a business community that recognizes the responsibility and value in upholding equity and inclusion.”
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has come under fire for endorsing Starbucks, despite the coffee chain’s alleged anti-union and anti-LGBTQ+ actions over the past year.
As part of its 2023-2024 Corporate Equality Index report, the human rights group listed Starbucks Corporation among several other companies to gain a perfect score of 100 for its LGBTQ+ rights protections.
The HRC wrote that the score was given to companies that it believed “took concrete steps to establish and implement comprehensive policies, benefits and practices that ensure greater equity for LGBTQ+ workers”.
But the decision has been met with widespread criticism from LGBTQ+ activists who have argued the company has used LGBTQ+ rights as a threat in its anti-union campaign over the past few years.
Following a string of Starbucks locations unionising throughout 2022 and 2023, staff have alleged that gender-affirming care benefits under the company’s healthcare plan could be dropped if unionisation continued.
Speaking to Bloomberg in June 2022, one trans member of staff claimed that her manger used a “veiled threat” to prevent unionisation, suggesting that trans-healthcare-related benefits could worsen if a union was formed.
A spokesperson for Starbucks told CNBC at the time that the claim was false.
A similar story in June this year had the report that Starbucks workers had alleged that the company prevented staff putting up Pride decorations in one outlet.
“If Starbucks was a true ally, they would stand up for us, especially during a time when LGBTQ+ people are under attack,” a statement from Starbucks Workers United (SWU), which first aired the allegations, said.
“A company that cares wouldn’t turn their back on the LGBTQ+ community to protect their already astronomically high profits.”
In a statement given to PinkNews, Starbucks said that no change to corporate policy on Pride decorations had taken place and that it was still “unwaveringly” supportive of the community.
“Starbucks has a history that includes more than four decades of recognising and celebrating our diverse partners and customers – including year-round support for the LGBTQIA2+ community,” the statement read.
Strike action was scheduled in June after the SWU claimed that unfair labour practices and a “refusal to bargain over changes in Pride decoration policies” resulted in “hypocritical” treatment of queer workers.
Starbucks award
At the time of reporting, more than 366 Starbucks outlets, with more than 9,100 employees across the US, have unionised.
Workers are currently pressing for a higher minimum wage to help tackle the cost of living crisis, as well as fighting for “fair scheduling procedures” and guaranteed minimum hours for workers.
The company has been accused by several groups and political figures of employing union-busting tactics.
In March, senator Bernie Sanders clashed with ex-Starbucks chief executive, Howard Schultz, after the former presidential candidate accused the coffee giant of “the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country”.
In response, Schultz said he was confident that Starbucks had not broken the law and that officials “want to treat everyone with respect and dignity”.
The HRC gave the company five out of five for workforce protection criteria and a perfect score for corporate social responsibility.
HRC also awarded top marks to the Walt Disney Corporation, which just last year was heavily criticised for removing a same-sex kiss from the animated film Lightyear.
The act of ‘coming out’ is often done in steps and, for many, can be an ongoing process. For myself, I came out in stages, first to a small group of select friends in 1991, then to family in 1993. Over the following years, I came out to more and more of my friends. However, it wasn’t until many years later — in 1998 — that I came out at work.
When I did, the CFO in our Corporate & Investment Bank — someone I’d worked with for years — said to me: “What could I have done better over these years to have made it easier for you?”
This is what we need now more than ever: people proactively asking these types of questions to the colleagues around them. Unfortunately, so many are unsure where to begin or how to advance their allyship. And, while many may think of themselves as allies, few realize that allyship is not a label, it requires action. We all have the power to create positive change when it comes to our colleagues feeling like they belong — no matter how they identify or what differences they bring to the table — by fueling inclusion and promoting safe and accepting environments.
A 2023 survey by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation found that 84 percent of LGBTQ+ workers are out to at least one person in their current job — substantially higher than in 2018, when only 54 percent of LGBTQ+ workers were out to at least one person at work. However, LGBTQ+ workers, on average, are half as likely to be out to their Human Resources department than to coworkers on their team, suggesting a potential lack of trust, or lack of opportunity to report. While we recognize the advancements that have been made to protect LGBTQ+ employees in the United States — in June 2020, the United States Supreme Court affirmed that LGBTQ+ workers are protected from discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — recent rulings against the transgender and nonbinary community, as an example, have shown that we still have a long way to go.
It’s also critically important for us to recognize that allyship is not just an action for cisgender, straight people. While allies must come from outside, they must also come from within the community. The LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith, it’s a vast community of diverse identities and orientations, all of which are not equal. LGBTQ+ community members from other marginalized groups, such as women and ethnic minorities, face more barriers. And as LGBTQ+ people around the world are fighting for basic rights and safety in courtrooms and on the streets, members of our transgender and gender expansive community are the most marginalized and at risk. When we look at our workplaces, these groups have even fewer opportunities to grow and thrive.
The allyship we called upon in the past remains essential, but it’s insufficient for today’s needs. We can no longer make meaningful progress with “allies on the sidelines.” It is no longer sufficient for allies to just “stand” with us, we need them to stand up for — and stand in front of — the LGBTQ+ community. The more visible and engaged allies there are, the easier it will be for all people to bring their full authentic selves to work every day.
To help inform our employees of what this might look like in practice, this year, we completed the global roll out of our LGBTQ+ Ally Journey program. Underpinning this program is the idea that allyship is not a label, it’s a series of intentional actions. The actions people can take range from small acts to larger displays of support, including displaying pronouns in email signatures, attending LGBTQ+ trainings, vocalizing support for LGBTQ+ issues, speaking up against harmful or offensive language, and even just talking openly and honestly with LGBTQ+ colleagues or loved ones about their lives.
At JPMorgan Chase, we are leading programming to engage, educate and empower our more than 300,000 global employees to make the pathway to active allyship more accessible. Our digitized Ally Journeys provide this type of direction and support, as well as tangible tools and resources for allies to chart their own path to be able to advocate for LGBTQ+ people around the globe.
Since JPMorgan Chase established the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs, in 2021, we’ve seen our impact amplified and our progress accelerate. For example, the number of employees self-identifying as LGBTQ+ has grown by 35% year-over-year in 2022, following 50% year-over-year growth in 2021. I can confidently say this progress would not be possible without a commitment from our global allies to making JPMorgan Chase an environment where all employees feel welcomed, equal and included.
Right now, we need everyone, from inside and outside our community, to use their privilege, influence, and/or positions of power to support all members of the LGBTQ+ community, especially those most marginalized — our transgender and nonbinary colleagues, friends and family. So, think about your allyship and potential allies in your organizations, consider how you could be helping employees at every level, and identify specific ways you can take action and have meaningful impact. Together, we can all thrive and ensure that we’re leaving no one behind.
Learn more about how JPMorgan Chase is dedicated to advancing equity and inclusion for the LGBTQ+ community here.
Brad Baumoel is head of JPMorgan Chase’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs.
The Trevor Project, a national suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth, announced it is leaving X, formerly known as Twitter, because of “increasing hate & vitriol on the platform targeting the LGBTQ community.” The decision comes just over a year after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk finalized his $44 billion purchase of the company.
“LGBTQ young people are regularly victimized at the expense of their mental health, and X’s removal of certain moderation functions makes it more difficult for us to create a welcoming space for them on this platform,” the organization wrote in a tweet Thursday.
The Trevor Project, which has nearly 350,000 followers on X, said the decision to leave was made with “input from dozens of internal and external perspectives.” In particular, the group wrote, “we questioned whether leaving the platform would allow harmful narratives and rhetoric to prevail with one less voice to challenge them.” But in the end, the group decided that leaving was “the right thing to do.”
At the end of its message, the organization directed LGBTQ young people to TrevorSpace.org, its own social networking space for queer teens and young adults. The Trevor Project also noted that it will continue to maintain its presence on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and Facebook.
X’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on The Trevor Project’s departure or its characterization of “hate & vitriol” on the platform.
As NBC News reported last month on the one-year anniversary of Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, many LGBTQ people say the once-hospitable home for community building has turned toxic.
This, they say, is due in part to a number of policy changes and business decisions at the company, including the layoff of employees who worked on reducing misinformation and harassment on the platform, and the removal of the site’s previous ban on intentionally using the incorrect pronouns or names for transgender people, practices known as misgendering and deadnaming.
GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, releases an annual Social Media Safety Index and Platform Scorecard that evaluates social media platforms’ policies for ensuring the safety of LGBTQ users. In its most recent scorecard, published in June, X ranked in last place among the major social media platforms.
Since Musk took over the platform, LGBTQ people running some of the most-followed X accounts have abandoned it. Elton John, who has over a million followers, announced he was leaving in December, and Ellen DeGeneres, who has 75 million followers, hasn’t tweeted since April.
And The Trevor Project is not the only LGBTQ nonprofit to leave. The San Francisco LGBT Center, LGBTQ Youth Scotland and the U.K.-based Mermaids, a transgender charity, have also left the platform, just to name a few.
Social media platform Instagram, operated by Meta, momentarily suspended on Wednesday the account of the far-right group Gays Against Groomers, only to reinstate it a few hours later.
The group broadcasted their reinstatement on X, formerly known as Twitter, expressing their defiance with a post: “UPDATE: Instagram has RESTORED our account after we appealed and raised hell about them suspending us this morning! Thank you to everyone who helped get the word out. And to all of our haters, of which there are many, cope and seethe. We will never be silenced!!”
A GLAAD spokesperson blasted Meta’s inconsistent moderation policies in a statement to The Advocate.
“Meta’s temporary suspension of the ‘Gays Against Groomers’ Instagram account today, and of the ‘Gays Against Groomers’ Facebook account for three days last month seems to indicate that the company has to some degree determined that the account is in violation of Meta’s Community Standards, which state very clearly that ‘we don’t allow hate speech.’”
The temporary suspension came amidst escalating efforts by a coalition of organizations urging Meta to enforce its community guidelines concerning the account.
In September, The Advocateexclusively reported on a report by Media Matters which outlined how Meta failed to moderate content that violated the terms of the platform.
A person close to ongoing discussions between advocacy groups and Meta who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Advocate that the reinstatement stemmed from political pressures within Meta. They speculated that while Meta’s trust and safety team likely found the group to violate the platform’s guidelines, an intervention might have come from the company’s political team to avert the scrutiny of Republicans in Congress, who have been critical of social media companies for purportedly suppressing conservative voices.
The Advocate reached out to Meta through multiple messages to shed light on the reasons behind the suspension and subsequent reinstatement of the account but did not receive an immediate response.
This incident highlights the continual challenges surrounding digital free speech, content moderation, and the onus on tech giants like Meta to curb hate speech and misinformation on their platforms. With advocacy groups advocating for more stringent content moderation policies to ensure user safety and foster a hate-free online environment, the unfolding situation further fuels the broader discourse on balancing freedom of expression with the responsibility of mitigating hateful content on digital platforms.
However, the song “Still 2 Genders,” criticized for its transphobic lyrics, continues to be available on the platform. Meanwhile, no changes have been made to Apple Music’s platform.
Earlier this month, The Advocatereported that the song was accessible on major music streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music, despite its derogatory lyrics towards transgender individuals, including a slur to describe them. The situation caught the attention of GLAAD, which then took up the issue with Spotify’s trust and safety team.
In an updated statement provided to The Advocate, a spokesperson from GLAAD emphasized the importance of enforcing hate speech policies by companies.
“Companies have hate speech policies to protect all users from toxic content and especially from content that incites violence against marginalized people. When these policies are violated, it is important to see companies enforce them,” the statement read.
GLAAD’s statement highlighted the grave real-world implications of hateful rhetoric and imagery connecting it to a tragic incident.
“The terrible murder of Lauri Carlton, an ally who had hung a Pride flag outside her store, is connected to a suspect who had an image of a burning Pride flag pinned to his Twitter profile,” the statement added.
The spokesperson further noted, “Rhetoric, images, and targeting of LGBTQpeople encourages real-world harms. Companies and brands must continue to recognize their responsibility to people’s safety and public safety and immediately act to avoid facilitating anti-LGBTQ hate and violence.”
Spotify responded by removing the album cover and video imagery that included a burning Progress Pride flag GLAAD noted to The Advocate. Despite these steps, the song itself, carrying an anti-trans slur and dehumanizing transgender people as “demons,” remains live on Spotify’s platform.
Both Spotify and Apple Music have policies in place to moderate content on their platforms. Apple Music for Artists’ terms of service stipulates that all lyrics provided to the platform must be “correct, accurate, and do not contain hate speech.” On the other hand, Spotify’s Dangerous Content policy bars “content that incites violence or hatred towards a person or group of people based on race, religion, gender identity or expression.”
Despite these policies, Apple Music has yet to make any changes or respond to inquiries regarding the song’s availability on its platform.
In a prior response, GLAAD had stressed the digital sphere’s struggle with hate speech moderation, especially concerning anti-LGBTQ+ content, which extends beyond the realm of music streaming platforms. Their concern was not only about the derogatory lyrics but also the inconsistency in enforcing content policies by these platforms, which undermines the safety and inclusivity of all users.
As the scrutiny continues, both Spotify and Apple Music remain unresponsive to multiple inquiries from The Advocate regarding this issue. This scenario underscores a broader discussion concerning digital content moderation on streaming platforms, especially around anti-LGBTQ+ content.
Today the European Commission services formally sent X a request for information under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This request follows indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech. The request addresses compliance with other provisions of the DSA as well.
Following its designation as Very Large Online Platform, X is required to comply with the full set of provisions introduced by the DSA since late August 2023, including the assessment and mitigation of risks related to the dissemination of illegal content, disinformation, gender-based violence, and any negative effects on the exercise of fundamental rights, rights of the child, public security and mental well-being.
In this particular case, the Commission services are investigating X’s compliance with the DSA, including with regard to its policies and actions regarding notices on illegal content, complaint handling, risk assessment and measures to mitigate the risks identified.
The Commission services are empowered to request further information to X in order to verify the correct implementation of the law.
X needs to provide the requested information to the Commission services by 18 October 2023 for questions related to the activation and functioning of X’s crisis response protocol and by 31 October 2023 on the rest.
Based on the assessment of X replies, the Commission will assess next steps. This could entail the formal opening of proceedings pursuant to Article 66 of the DSA.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has allowed an anti-LGBTQ+ group to spread hate speech and misinformation about LGBTQ+ people on its platforms in violation of the company’s policies for over a year, according to a new report from Media Matters for America.
The report, published by the media watchdog organization on Tuesday, details dozens of instances in which Gays Against Groomers used its Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts to post anti-LGBTQ+ content, including false claims that trans people are mentally ill and that LGBTQ+ people embrace pedophilia, as well as misinformation about gender-affirming care and the false “groomer” narrative propagated by the anti-LGBTQ+ right.
All of this content appears to clearly violate Meta’s policies prohibiting hate speech, harassment and misinformation, and yet it has remained on the company’s platforms. As the report notes, Meta has also vowed to label false and misleading information as such and deprioritize it in feeds. But the company has failed to do so on Gays Against Groomers’s posts.
The report notes that Instagram in particular has a well-documented history of failing to moderate harmful content, especially when it comes to attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s an age-old problem that we’ve seen with Meta,” Media Matters research director Kayla Gogarty told The Advocate. Gogarty noted changes Elon Musk has made to Twitter, rebranded as X, since taking over the company last year. Last December, the company disbanded its Trust & Safety Council, which advised on the removal of hateful content.
“One of my biggest concerns is that they’re seeing Elon Musk’s kind of backsliding on enforcement and things like that [and] they’re seeing that almost as a permission structure for them to also backslide,” Gogarty said.
Gays Against Groomers’s very name and raison d’etre appear to be in violation of Meta’s hate speech policies. In July 2022, the company confirmed to The Daily Dot that baseless accusations of “grooming” aimed at LGBTQ+ people are governed under its policies prohibiting hate speech.
Launched in June 2022, Gays Against Groomers purports to be a “grassroots” coalition dedicated to “protecting children.” But as Media Matters reported in February, the group’s founder Jaimee Michell and its former chair and co-founder David Leatherwood “were pro-Trump operatives employed by right-wing communications firms representing other conservative figures who have attempted to capitalize off of the anti-LGBTQ fervor of the last two years.” In January, the Anti-Defamation League described the group as “an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist coalition” based on its peddling of “dangerous and misleading narratives about the LGBTQ+ community.” The Southern Poverty Law Center has also has also labeled Gays Against Groomers as “an extremist group.”
Since its June 6, 2022, launch, the group’s Instagram account has amassed over 357,000 followers. It has around 39,000 followers on Facebook and over 24,000 followers on Threads. While the group has been kicked off of platforms like Venmo, Paypal, and Google and has been suspended on Twitter multiple time prior to Musk’s takeover, Meta’s platforms have taken no action against its accounts. The group’s Facebook account was briefly suspended last week, but a source told The Daily Dot that the suspension was an error.
“Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are some of the few mainstream platforms that have not banned Gays Against Groomers, even though the group seems to have repeatedly violated the platforms’ policies,” the Media Matters report states.
In fact, Meta has profited off of ads promoting the false “groomer” narrative, despite publicly stating that use of the term to attack LGBTQ+ people violates its policies. An August 2022 report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Human Rights Campaign found that the company accepted up to $24,987 for 59 ads promoting the narrative on Facebook and Instagram. The following October, Media Matters identified over 150 ads featuring the slur that ran on Meta’s platforms.
According to The Advocate, a spokesperson for Meta said that examples of Gays Against Groomers posts documented in the Media Matters report were “non-violating.”
“If someone were to use the term ‘groomer’ as an attack against someone based on being part of the LGBTQ+ community, it violates our hate speech policies,” the Meta spokesperson clarified.
