Prompt

Towards a systematisation of LGBT disinformation: Narratives, Actors, and Strategies in the EU

Towards a systematisation of LGBT disinformation: Narratives, Actors, and Strategies in the EU

15/12/2024

lgbtqia+

By Sara Mercereau,opsci.ai

Despite the growing focus of research on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) in the past few decades, LGBTQIA+ disinformation - as a subtype of FIMI - is still quite understudied. Indeed, although increasing attention has been paid to gender disinformation, the latter is often equated with women-targeted disinformation, leading to a generalised focus on disinformation phenomena  directed at women in diverse fields and contexts. This emphasis on women, combined with the absence of a coherent and unified definition of LGBTQIA+ disinformation, have contributed to the lack of a systematic approach to the study of LGBTQIA+ disinformation. In addition, the current growing levels of FIMI targeting LGBTQIA+ individuals in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, reinforce the need for research on this subject. 

This article aims at contributing to establish LGBTQIA+ disinformation as a consolidated field of study within FIMI, by providing a conceptual clarification of LGBTQIA+ disinformation, as well as conducting a comprehensive literature review of existing research on LGBTQIA+ disinformation, exposing its main narratives, actors and strategies employed. By doing so, this contribution provides a theoretical ground for the PROMPT project, which will be resorting to AI-driven methods to unveil the main disinformation narratives targeting the LGBTQIA+ community.

Introduction

In the past two decades we have noticed a growing gap between, on the one hand, increasing levels of tolerance and legal rights of LGBTQIA+ people in the EU - for instance, with the generalised decriminalisation of homosexuality in most EU states - and, on the other, a backlash against equal rights and an increase in hate speech against LGBTQIA+ individuals. These latter phenomena are especially present in Eastern Europe, where a rise of LGBTQIA+-directed disinformation is associated with a backlash of LGBTQIA+ rights and the rise of online hate speech (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2020). A ‘pink curtain’ thus emerges in Europe, with each side having contrasting levels of social acceptance, cultural norms and policy frameworks regarding LGBTIQ+ people (Kuhar, 2007). This rise in discrimination and hate speech is often underpinned by a growing number of cases of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) targeting LGBTQIA+ individuals. Despite these increasing occurrences, the study of disinformation towards the LGBTQIA+ community remains somehow neglected when compared with disinformation targeting other minority groups, such as women or the black community (EUDisinfoLab, 2021; Countering Disinformation, 2021). Organisations such as the European External Action Service (EEAS) (2023) and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World) (2023) have acknowledged this gap in research and emphasised how it results in the absence of a coherent and unified definition of LGBTQIA+ disinformation. Additionally, the EEAS (2023: 5) has suggested that the “lack of coordination, cooperation and communication between different stakeholders” results in serious shortcomings in the “tracking, preventing and combating” of LGBTQIA+ disinformation. 

In this scenario of growing intolerance towards the LGBTQIA+ community, and in the absence  of a systematised approach regarding LGBTQIA+ disinformation, this article aims to contribute to reducing the gap in research while bringing awareness on the subject of LGBTQIA+ disinformation. It does so by: 1. advancing an intersectional definition of LGBTQIA+ disinformation as a subtype of gender disinformation; 2. exploring the main narratives, actors and techniques present in LGBTQIA+ disinformation..

An Intersectional Approach to LGBTQIA+ Disinformation

There  are intersections and overlaps between LGBTQIA+, gender and women-directed disinformation. Yet  there is no clear, established definition for these phenomena and how they relate to each other.  The intrinsic association between gender issues and women has led some authors to fairly center their analysis of gender disinformation on disinformation towards women (Jankowicz (2017); Di Meco (2020: 4);  Rajvanshi (2023)). Therefore, even when LGBTQIA+ disinformation is recognised as a constituent part of gender disinformation, the prominence and significance of disinformation targeting women maintains the focus of gender disinformation research on women-related issues. Indeed, it is true that misleading content targeting women constitutes a significant share of gender disinformation, and it shall not be neglected. However, the exclusive focus on women as the target group of gender disinformation can result in - possibly unintentional - binary understandings of this subtype of disinformation, shifting attention from other important phenomena such as LGBTQIA+-directed disinformation (EUDisinfoLab, 2021). 

There are good reasons why LGBTQIA+ and women-targeted disinformation often fall under the broad category of gender disinformation. Both phenomena attest to an exploitation of gender and sexuality norms, - by leveraging traditional norms of gender and sexuality to delegitimise, marginalise, or ridicule their targets - a weaponisation of religion, - frequently exploiting themes related to reproduction and family structures - and the idea of a conflation with Western values, portraying both women and LGBTQIA+ rights as foreign impositions from the West. 

But there are also important aspects setting these two FIMI types apart. Regarding the subject matter focus, while women-focused disinformation primarily undermines women, challenging gender equality efforts or reinforcing patriarchal norms (Global Disinformation Index, 2024), LGBTQIA+ disinformation often portrays LGBTQIA+ communities specifically as being unnatural, immoral, or even dangerous (EDMO, 2023). 

In other words, despite general common traits, the concrete narratives and underlying stereotypes mobilised against women; and against LGBTQIA+, are  different. Women-focused disinformation narratives include discrediting women in leadership (Sinha, 2021), denying gender-based violence (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2022), or suggesting women’s empowerment efforts as damaging to social cohesion (Di Meco and Wilfore, 2021). These narratives build on stereotypes portraying women as emotionally unstable, overly ambitious or unfit for leadership roles, as well as women’s assigned role as reproductors and caregivers. On the other hand, LGBTQIA+ disinformation frames LGBTQIA+ identities as a ‘threat’ to children and/or to society as a whole, portrays LGBTQIA+ individuals as defying the ‘natural’ - heterosexual - family structure, and spreads pseudoscience to pathologize LGBTQIA+ identities. These narratives lay on the stereotypes of LGBTQIA+ people as morally corrupt, a challenge to traditional values and pedophilia-prone or associated with mental or physical health issues. Finally, women and LGBTQIA+ disinformation differ in the policy-domains they target and attempt to influence. Women-focused disinformation often focuses on gender equality policies, such as reproductive rights, gender pay equity, and workplace inclusion, whereas LGBTQIA+ disinformation usually addresses policies focusing on the community per se, such as marriage equality, anti-discrimination laws, and educational policies regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

Given this complex dynamic, a clear definition of LGBTQIA+ disinformation is valuable, not least to understand how it fits vis-a-vis women and gender disinformation more broadly. Since one’s understanding of the phenomena falling under the umbrella of gender disinformation is dependent on the very definition of gender one chooses to endorse, we shall dedicate some space to advance our understanding of this concept. Indeed, if one relies on a binary and essentialist understanding of gender, it would follow that gender disinformation would encompass predominantly disinformation targeting women. If we employ, however, a spectrum-based intersectional definition of gender, then the latter would not only include women, but also gender non-conforming people and the broader LGBTQIA+ community (Jonusaite et al, 2022). Under this framework, one can envision LGBTQIA+ related topics as being gender topics, and thus can consider LGBTQIA+ disinformation as a subtype of gender disinformation. Besides endorsing an inclusive, intersectional, and fluid conceptualisation of gender, this categorisation process also enables the study of LGBTQIA+ disinformation in isolation from other types of gender disinformation, - for example disinformation targeting women in politics (Sessa, 2020) or women refugees in contexts of war (Center for the Study of Democracy, 2024) - thereby also allowing us to narrow the scope of analysis in related research. Given its consideration of intersectional realities, this fluid understanding of gender disinformation also helps account for varying levels of victimisation among diverse subtypes of gender disinformation. While women, in general, are particularly exposed to disinformation campaigns when compared to men, women from racial, religious, sexual or other minority groups are targeted to an ever greater extent (Di Meco and Wilfore, 2021). For instance, ILGA World (2023) highlights the role of trans women as the most targeted group by gender disinformation. Said differently, considering LGBTQIA+ disinformation as a subtype of gender disinformation moves us beyond an outdated understanding of gender relying on the women/men dichotomy while also advancing the recognition of LGBTQIA+ disinformation as a distinct area of focus within FIMI analyses.

Main narratives in LGBTQIA+ Disinformation

With a spectrum-based intersectional definition of LGBTQIA+ disinformation in hand, we now look at its main narratives, actors, and strategies, platforms & techniques, based on an adaptation of the briefing Disinformation campaigns about LGBTI+ people in the EU and foreign influence of the European Parliament (2021). It is nonetheless worth mentioning that these narratives often appear combined, mutually reinforcing one another.

The first narrative underpinning LGBTQIA+ disinformation portrays the advocacy of LGBTQIA+ rights as a form of ‘colonialism’ imposed by a morally corrupt West. Emphasising the East-West divide, this narrative positions Europe - understood here as the EU - as embodying moral decay. In contrast, Russia stands for cultural and religious preservation, presented as the defender of traditional values and a counterforce to ‘Gayropa’. It fosters scepticism towards the EU and globalisation, portraying opposition to LGBTQIA+ rights as resistance against the ideological ‘colonisation’ of the capitalist, anti-family, anti-religious West. This idea of LGBTQIA+ advocacy as an outside force imposing on national identity and thus challenging national sovereignty widely rests on a masculine view of the nation. Enloe (1990: 44) has emphasised how national identities have “typically sprung from masculinized memory, masculinized humiliation, and masculinized hope”, thereby disregarding not only women, reduced to their biological reproductive role and the mission of transmitting national values to the next generation, but also gender non-conforming people, whose identity has no place in this heterosexist gender regime (Thomson, 2020: 4; 6). In this framework, national identity is deeply intertwined with binary understandings of gender, and those who fall outside these binarisms are seen as outsiders (‘them’) trying to impose their identity and values on the national self (‘us’).

This  narrative is particularly resonant in Central and Eastern Europe given its geographical and cultural proximity to Russia. It builds into what the EEAS (2023: 2) has stated to be the main discursive line in anti-LGBTQIA+ disinformation, i.e., the idea that the West is in decline. For example, it appeared  in the build-up to the 2020 presidential elections in Poland, when entities such as Polish conservative and nationalist media outlets, local government officials in various municipalities and prominent political figures of the then-ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) portrayed LGBTQIA+ rights as a foreign and harmful ideology imposed by a morally corrupt West and, particularly, by the EU as part of a broader effort to undermine Polish sovereignty and threaten Poland’s traditional values and identity. This culminated in more than a hundred Polish municipalities declaring themselves as LGBT-Free zones (Council of Europe, 2020).

A second narrative of LGBTQIA+ disinformation portrays the LGBTQIA+ community as a ‘threat to child safety’, arguing that sex education in the West promotes unnatural sexualities and gender expressions. In this narrative, LGBTQIA+ people are portrayed as a danger to children due to their ‘predatory behaviour’ and attempts at ‘converting children into sexual perversions’ (EEAS, 2023: 23). Furthermore, LGBTQIA+ identities are labelled as a public health hazard, and the EU is presented as the ‘corrupting force’ that sponsors these behaviours, due to its support for sex education, depicted as promoting ‘deviant’ lifestyles. Sex education is seen as an open door to indoctrination, sexualisation, and inappropriate exposure to adult themes. It turns the education system into a contested battleground, with European anti-discrimination efforts on one side and the right of families to uphold their own moral and religious values, on the other. This narrative was widely present in Bulgaria in the lead to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention (2011). There, disinformation surfed on the premise that children would become perverted and taken away from parents into foster care, or sold to Scandinavia and Norway, where it was - falsely - reported that paedophilia was a state policy. Ultimately, this enacted a wave of indignation and revolt that culminated in many parents withdrawing their children from school, primarily driven by the fear that their offspring  might be placed with gay couples in Scandinavia who would sexually exploit them (Dragoeva, 2020).

A third narrative underpinning LGBTQIA+ disinformation is grounded in the resistance against an imagined ‘gender ideology’ dominating Western liberal democracies, particularly in the EU. In this narrative, disinformation towards both women and the LGBTQIA+ community overlap: the term ‘anti-gender’ assembles opposition to both women and LGBTQIA+ rights, framed as a threat to traditional, hegemonic masculinity. It presents ‘gender ideology’ as a broad and ambiguous term bringing together diverse religious and far-right groups that aim at pushing back against women’s rights, sex education, and LGBTQIA+ rights. The EEAS (2023) notes that Russian disinformation around gender and LGBTQIA+ issues heavily leverages this ‘gender ideology’ narrative, a concept previously championed by the Vatican in the 1990s and later expanded to include the term ‘LGBT ideology’. In a  recent example taking place in 2020, Italian far-right groups and pro-life associations, as well as the Vatican, opposed the DDL Zan, a bill to criminalise violence and hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community. These opponents claimed that the bill imposed a ‘gender ideology’ contrary to natural ethics and Christian anthropology (Gagliarducci, 2021).

A fourth narrative relies on heteroactivism and the mission of protecting the ‘natural’ family structure. Heteroactivism refers to organised efforts or activism aimed at preserving or promoting heterosexuality as the societal norm. It portrays the  liberal perspective on gender as a threat to human reproduction as it disregards what is envisioned as the complementary nature of traditional gender roles, thus endangering the ‘natural’ family model of a married man and woman with children (Thomson, 2020: 6). Originally framed as an anti-narrative opposing gender and LGBTQIA+ rights, this stance has evolved to include advocacy for the traditional nuclear family. In these lines, ‘heteroactivism’ thus seeks to reassert the centrality of heteronormativity and traditional family structures, all while resorting to explicit anti-LGBTQIA+ language and promoting a binary, normative gender framework. An example of a body championing this narrative is the World Congress of Families (WCF), which portrays its mission as defending heterosexuality and heterosexuals and upholding the ‘natural family’. Because this narrative frames heteronormativity as a human rights struggle, it hampers the separation between disinformation and human rights advocacy, making it difficult to counter it via legal reforms. This challenge has led the European Parliament (2021: 20) to consider it as the most dangerous among LGBTQIA+ disinformation narratives. 

Another narrative centres on religion and its central role in disinformation campaigns directed at LGBTQIA+ people, fostering the idea of restoring the ‘natural’ order as designated by God. This narrative is closely tied with the advocacy of the ‘natural family’ structure and the opposition to ‘gender ideology’.  In the 1990s, anti-gender campaigns emerged in Europe from conservative sectors of the Catholic Church. From then onwards, different religious groups continuously promoted anti-LGBTQIA+ narratives, often characterising homosexuality as ‘perverse’, ‘excessive’, or ‘immoral’, framing it as a threat to social and moral order as defined by divine law. Anchored in unscientific claims that sexuality is a personal choice, this rhetorical framework fuels support for ‘conversion therapy’ aiming at altering individual sexual orientation or gender identity to align with heteronormative standards. The network Tradition Family and Property (TFP), originally rooted in Latin American Catholic circles (and now operating in Europe) is an example of a religious organisation mobilising this narrative to oppose sexual and reproductive rights. Furthermore, different anti-abortion campaigns led by Catholic organisations also rely on this narrative, portraying abortion as disrupting God’s natural design for family and human life and framing life as beginning at conception, thereby considering abortion as a violation of both religious teachings and natural law. The Polish Catholic Church advanced this narrative in the period preceding Poland’s adoption of a more restrictive abortion law framework (Bucholc, 2022).

A last narrative portrays LGBTQIA+ people as a social disease. It often resorts to medical terms such as ‘virus’, ‘contamination’, and ‘disease’, and can have  both a literal sense - presenting being LGBTQIA+ as an illness to be cured, contained, or countered and advocating for conversion therapies or even criminalisation of LGBTQIA+ identities - or a more figurative connotation - presenting LGBTQIA+ identities as something spreadable hence able to ‘infect’ others, functioning as a corrupting influence on ‘healthy’ and  ‘pure’ societies. The COVID-19 era was widely marked by the dissemination of narratives of the first type, with a Kremlin-spread narrative, first detected in the Middle East, alleging that COVID-19 vaccines could turn people LGBTQIA+ (Moskalenko & Romanova, 2022: 137). Another theory prevailing during this period supported that LGBTQIA+ people were biologically or behaviorally more susceptible to COVID-19 due to alleged ‘unhealthy’ lifestyles, building on stereotypes such as LGBTQIA+ people being promiscuous or prone to drug-use (Gil et al., 2021).

The Actors of LGBTQIA+ Disinformation

Having revisited the main narratives present in LGBTQIA+ disinformation, we shall now look into the actors establishing, refining, and spreading these narratives. Russia is commonly and rightfully referred to as the central foreign actor propagating anti-LGBTQIA+ disinformation in Europe (Karlsen, 2019: 1; Roguski, 2019). Indeed, considering that anti-LGBTQIA+ disinformation narratives often rely on the denunciation of a supposed “declining West”, it becomes evident how Russia benefits from instrumentalising anti-LGBTQIA+ disinformation in its broader mission of discrediting and undermining Western democracies. Nevertheless, if Russia is the main disinformation actor regarding LGBTQIA+ topics, it is certainly not the only one. It often acts in cooperation with other state or non-state, Russian or foreign actors, both to dissimulate its engagement in these campaigns as well as to maximise their effects. Thereby, Russia often operates subtly through ideologically-driven international allies or conservative local partners. Indeed, despite the overall focus on foreign actors guiding these campaigns, we shall stress the role of European partners, namely religious entities or conservative politicians that ally themselves with foreign actors, forming a consortium of actors that co-produce these disinformation narratives. For example, the spread of the above-mentioned narrative advancing resistance against a supposed ‘gender ideology’ that would dominate the EU relies heavily on this coordination between Russian and European disinformation actors, namely via the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on conservative religious groups in Europe; collaborations between Russian conservative intellectuals such as Aleksandr Dugin, and European far-right parties, such as Italy's Lega Nord and Austria's Freedom Party (FPÖ); or even through anti-gender diplomacy networks, in which ‘gender ideology’ is collectively opposed by a network comprising Western conservatives, Russian oligarchs, and Russian Orthodox clergy. These networks tend to be particularly effective given their knowledge of the local context and the audiences’ demands and preoccupations, and they are primarily present in Southeastern Europe.

Finally, there are other state and non-state actors disseminating anti-LGBTQIA+ disinformation for other reasons besides undermining the West and its cultural foundations. Actors as diverse as family organisations, anti-abortion groups, religious conservatives, nationalists and far-right groups also engage in these campaigns, forming consortias of actors that, despite having different motivations, advancing different narratives and engaging in different strategies, converge in spreading false or misleading information about LGBTQIA+ individuals to deceive or manipulate their audiences. 

Strategies, Platforms and Techniques employed in LGBTQIA+ Disinformation

Having covered both the main narratives and actors playing in the field of LGBTQIA+ disinformation, we shall now look at the main strategies, platforms and techniques that these actors resort to to convey those narratives. Some authors (EEAS, 2023; Strand et al., 2021; Ilga World, 2023) highlight how disinformation strategies towards LGBTQIA+ individuals have increasingly resorted to traditional activist methods to disseminate their narratives, such as social media campaigns, community events and protests, or ‘awareness’ campaigns. Regarding the specific techniques employed by disinformation actors to spread anti-LGBTQIA+ disinformation, the EEAS Report on FIMI targeting LGBTQIA+ people (2023) highlights impersonations, fabrication and alteration of documents, hybrid attacks, creation of online games and calls for offline actions and protests as commonly used techniques employed in the dissemination of LGBTQIA+ disinformation. Distortion of facts around specific events and real-world crises, resort to populist strategies where actors portray themselves as the defenders of the oppressed people, and generalisation of individual cases to represent the whole community are also common techniques employed by these actors. Finally, a technique that is thoroughly employed in LGBTQIA+ disinformation narratives is negative othering, abiding by a we versus them logic in which LGBTQIA+ individuals are portrayed as a foreign ‘other’ whose existence threatens the values and the very existence of an imagined ‘us’  (Strand et al., 2021).

Concerning the concrete platforms of communication employed to disseminate LGBTQIA+ disinformation, we shall reiterate the previously mentioned role of social media, working as an amplifier of these narratives, reinforcing community ties and constituting the optimal ground to organise anti-LGBTQIA+ rallies and events. The EEAS report (2023) stresses the role of traditional social media platforms in disseminating this content, with Telegram taking the lead, accounting for a 48% share of LGBTQIA+ disinformation. Websites - including state-controlled and state-affiliated media - come second, gathering 20% of the content, followed by X (former Twitter), with 19%. Despite this prevalence of mainstream social media, there are also alternative platforms targeting specific and regional audiences, namely the Russian VK.com and Zen platforms. Besides social media, there are other, more traditional channels of communication transmitting LGBTQIA+ disinformation. These include official channels such as state representatives, government bodies, or diplomatic sources; state-controlled channels primarily funded and/or controlled by the state through direct budget allocations; and state-linked channels, which are indirectly supported by the state through indirect funding or are operated by state intelligence agencies (EEAS, 2023: 14).

Finally, as mentioned above, it is also a current strategy in LGBTQIA+ disinformation for foreign state and non-state actors to collaborate with local influencers, such as religious authorities and conservative political figures, who often have a more accurate understanding of the concrete concerns of the target audience. An example of this can be found in Poland, where Russian Sputnik and RT have been known to spread narratives that portray LGBTQIA+ rights as a threat to traditional Polish values, often aligning these messages with themes promoted by conservative Polish politicians and influential religious leaders. As a result, during the 2019 and 2020 Polish presidential elections, certain conservative Polish leaders echoed disinformation narratives similar to those disseminated by those Russian media, suggesting that the LGBTQIA+ ‘ideology’ is a form of Western ‘colonisation’ meant to destabilise Polish family structures (Theise & Cragg, 2020).

Conclusion

This article aims at contributing to the emerging field of LGBTQIA+ disinformation by clarifying the concepts of LGBTQIA+ and gender disinformation. It reviews the existing literature regarding the prevalent narratives, actors, strategies and techniques employed in the spread of disinformation. It argues that by conceptualising LGBTQIA+ disinformation as a subtype of gender disinformation targeting the LGBTQIA+ community and individuals specifically, we obtain a fluid and inclusive definition of gender disinformation, while also being able to distinguish LGBTQIA+ disinformation from other gender-related FIMI phenomena. This allows us to study LGBTQIA+ disinformation in isolation from, and in combination with, these other phenomena. These conceptual clarifications, as well as the embryonic efforts to systematise the study of this subtype of disinformation, are aligned with PROMPT’s central mission of developing a structured and consistent analysis of LGBTQIA+ disinformation, ultimately aiming at contributing to the sanitization of the public space, and to a digital democracy more resistant to informational threats.

Bibliography