A human rights organisation in Uganda that supports members of the LGBTQ+ community was ordered to shut down by the government just days before the country’s election.
Chapter Four Uganda, which is dedicated to the protection of civil liberties and promotion of human rights – including LGBTQ+ rights – in the East African nation, had its operating permit suspended with immediate effect by the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organisations under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The suspension came just days before the country’s election, which incumbent president Yoweri Museveni – who has led the country since 1986 – won with 72 per cent.
The election was marred by violence, with Museveni’s challenger Bobi Wine alleging his win was down to “fake results” and “ballot stuffing”.
Alongside Chapter Four, several other human rights organisations in the country also had their permits suspended, with the Bureau citing alleged “intelligence information” that claimed the organisation was involved in activities deemed “prejudicial to the security and laws of Uganda” – which would violate Article 42(d) of the Non-Governmental Organisations Act.
In a statement, Chapter Four expressed “concern” over the indefinite suspension.
“The suspension is based on vague allegations that we engaged in activities that are prejudicial to the security and laws of Uganda. As a law-abiding organisation, we have closed our offices and temporarily suspended our operations. We regret any inconvenience this causes to our partners and the community of beneficiaries,” the organisation said.
“We consider this suspension unjustified and are pursuing all available administrative and legal measures to restore our operational status as soon as possible.”
The human rights organisation went on to say for more than a decade it has “worked transparently in courts of law, Parliament, and communities to protect and promote human rights, advance access to justice, and strengthen the rule of law – fostering fairer societies for all.”
It added: “We remain committed to collaborating with government authorities and the people of Uganda to advance the promise of Chapter Four in the 1995 Constitution.”
This crack down on human rights organisations is worrying for LGBTQ+ people in Uganda, who are already at heightened risk following the passage of the country’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Act – which immediately became one of the strictest pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the world when it was passed.
The Act doubled down on already cruel sanctions imposed on LGBTQ+ people in Uganda, where same-sex sexual acts and freedom to talk about queer topics were already illegal.
The legislation still punishes homosexuality with imprisonment for up to life but also introduced the new offence of ‘aggravated homosexuality’, which carries the death penalty.
Acts defined as ‘aggravated homosexuality’ include sexual activity with disabled people, those who are HIV positive and people aged 75 and over – with consent to the sexual act not constituting a defence to a charge. This category also applies to criminal offences such as rape of a child or adult and incest.
‘Attempted homosexuality’ is also punishable by law, with a punishment of up to 10 years in prison possible, while ‘attempted aggravated homosexuality’ can be met with up to 14 years imprisonment.
Condemning the suspension of Chapter Four’s permit, Kechukwu Uzoma, senior staff attorney at the Kennedy Human Rights Center, said: “The weaponisation of vague laws and attacks on the right to freedom of association during electoral periods directly violate the right to vote.
“Such repressive actions undermine the integrity of elections and weaken democracy at its core. All stakeholders, including the African Union, must act now.”
Gay hockey rivals-to-lovers show Heated Rivalry is all anyone can talk about, and for fans of the series looking for a real life queer love story in the sport then they need look no further than the upcoming Winter Olympics.
Heated Rivalry is an adaption of Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novel series and follows two hockey players, Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), who are rivals on the ice but lovers between the sheets.
“Shane and Ilya are two of the biggest stars in major league hockey, bound by ambition, rivalry and a magnetic pull neither of them fully understands,” the show’s synopsis reads, for those who have somehow missed the Heated Rivalrytrain.
“Their secret fling evolves into an eight-year journey of self-discovery and rivalry. Over time, they must learn how to chase their desires on and off the ice.
“Torn between the sport they live for and the love they can’t ignore, Shane and Ilya must decide if there is room in their fiercely competitive world for something as fragile and as powerful as real love.”
The show has been a smash-hit since it premiere in November, scoring 99 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and becoming Crave’s most-watched original series to date, with a huge fandom emerged in just two months – if the 8,000 works on AO3 are anything to go by…
For those eager for some real life queer hockey romance, you only need to look to pro hockey stars Anna Kjellbin and Ronja Savolainen, who play on different teams in the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) and will face off against each other at the Winter Olympics in northeastern Italy but are engaged to be married.
Swedish star Kjellbin defenceman for the Toronto Sceptres while Finnish player Savolainen is a defenceman for Ottawa Charge.
Back in 2024, Savolainen confirmed love does not get in the way of competition, saying of playing against Kjellbin: “I don’t care who’s in front of me … if it’s going to be her, I’m going to hit her. We can take it up after the game.”
She added: “When you play, you just play. You don’t really think about who’s there. You’re friends after. On the ice, she’s my enemy. That’s how it goes.”
As per Out Sports, the couple were dating for five years before announcing their engagement in 2024.
Alongside Kjellbin and Savolainen, Cosmopolitan has also featured a story about skeleton sliders Kim Meylemans and Nicole Silveira, who are married and previously faced off against each other during the 2022 Winter Olympics.
“It’s very special to be able to share [the] Olympic Games with your partner,” Meylemans said back in 2022.
“It’s an extremely stressful, high-pressure period, so to have my person there as a comfort and safe space is of immense value to me, and also my performance. It brings a sense of calmness and normality into the [craziest] weeks of our career.”
The couple tied the knot on 1 August 2025 in a small, pre-Olympics ceremony, with plans for a “big dream beach wedding” in 2026.
“With the Games being in Italy and the current Italian government making decisions/laws that hurt the LGBTQ+ community…it feels extra special to potentially compete as a married couple and shine a light on marriage equality while doing so,” the couple said in a joint Instagram post.
“We’re still having our big dream beach wedding next year… We really love heading into this huge season and possibly last Olympic Games as spouses…no matter what curve balls this year and the challenges ahead will throw at us, our love comes first.”
The official LGBTQ+ supporters group for the England football team has announced it will not have a “visible presence” at the 2026 Men’s World Cup due to what they describe as the United States’ “dangerous rollback of human rights”.
Three Lions Pride, which represents queer England fans, published a strongly worded statement on its website on Thursday (15 January), criticising the United States’ reversal and attacks on human rights, particularly LGBTQ+ rights.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to take place from 11 June to 19 July across the US, Canada and Mexico, with 16 cities hosting the tournament – 11 in the US, three in Mexico, and two in Canada.
The three countries were announced as joint hosts of the sporting competition back in 2018, news that – at the time – came as a relief to many LGBTQ+ football fans, as that year Russia was hosting, with Qatar was set to be in charge in 2022. Both Russia and Qatar have abysmal records on LGBTQ+ rights, with many queer fans choosing not to attend those tournaments in-person due to the restrictive laws and regressive attitudes.
However, in the years since that hosting decision, the United States’ reputation as a nation which is safe for LGBTQ+ travellers – indeed, same-sex marriage was legalised across the US in 2015 – has diminished under the Trump administration. According to the Spartacus Gay Travel Index, a widely shared global index that ranks countries on LGBTQ+ legal rights and safety conditions the United States dropped from 41st place in 2024 to 48th place in the 2025 edition.
In their statement, Three Lions Pride said the US, Canada and Mexico tournament has long been in the diaries of LGBTQ+ fans as they believed it would be an opportunity “for queer fans to enjoy a tournament focused more on the football rather than their personal safety”.
However, “that hope, that optimism, is well and truly shattered”, the organisation said.
“As a group that provides support and community for all the LGBT+ family, the rhetoric and dangerous rollback of human rights in the US has caused considerable concern to fans who were previously planning to attend the 2026 World Cup. There is a fear that our trans+ family would be at high risk of violence and discrimination, our butch lesbian family would be caught in the crosshairs of anti-trans legislation around bathrooms and our queer family generally would be a target for abuse.
“This is unsafe and unacceptable,” the statement reads.
Since returning to office in January 2025 for his second term, Donald Trump has enacted hundreds of executive orders that are reshaping the government and country in his image, with many of those attacking the LGBTQ+ community, trans people in particular.
“We cannot guarantee the safety and security of our members”
Three Lions Pride went on to say that a number of factors have contributed to this decision, including the US government’s travel bans on certain nations, US visas planning to require five years of social media history and the controversial deployment of ICE to various US cities – which at the start of the year lead to the death of a Renee Nicole Good, a mother and US citizen – alongside ticket prices.
“Three Lions Pride, in light of the issues around the tournament, will not be having a visible presence at the 2026 Men’s World Cup,” the group concludes.
“We cannot guarantee the safety and security of our members and cannot endorse the appalling decisions of FIFA around ticketing and safety by tacit acceptance through our visible attendance as a group.
“For any of our members, or queer fans generally, who are travelling or attending games at the World Cup – we will not abandon you. We will continue to provide advice and support remotely, including key contacts should any issues arise. Further details will be sent to members before the tournament, and will be available to non-members through our email and social media on request.
“This is a tournament that had so much promise. Less than six months out from the tournament it only promises to line FIFA’s corrupt pockets whilst TV viewers see empty seats and exclude loyal fans whilst creating a real risk of numerous human rights violations based on disability, race, gender and sexuality.
“Today, and every day, Gianni Infantino should feel ashamed.”
Ten people in France have been found guilty of cyberbullying first lady Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, by claiming she is secretly a transgender woman.
A court in Paris on Monday (5 January) ruled the defendants, which includes eight men and two women aged between 41 and 65, had spread false claims about her gender and sexuality alongside making “malicious remarks” about the 24-year age gap between the couple.
The court noted “particularly degrading, insulting, and malicious” comments made by the defendants about Macron’s gender, amid a wide-ranging conspiracy theory that she is secretly a trans woman who was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux – which is, in fact, the name of her brother.
The court decision comes as the Macron’s pursue a separate defamation case in the United States against far-right influencer Candace Owens, who has repeatedly pushed the conspiracy theory about Brigitte’s gender including releasing an eight-part audio and video series on the topic. The defamation complaint, which is 219 pages long, was filed in Delaware state court in July 2025 and names both Owens and her business entities, which are incorporated in the Democratic state.
The defendants were also accused of linking the age gap between the French president, 48, and first lady, 72, to a peadophillic relationship. The couple met when he was a 15-year-old student at Le Providence, a Catholic school in northern France, and she was his drama teacher, then aged 39. They married in 2007 after Brigitte divorced her first husband, when Macron was 29 and she was 54. Their relationship has been the subject of much press and public scrutiny.
Brigitte Macron is the wife of Emmanuel Macron, the current President of France (Edward Berthelot/Getty Images)
Some of the posts made by the defendants were said to have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
The first lady did not attend the trial hearings in October but reportedly told investigators after filing the legal complaint that the false claims she is trans have “strongly affected” herself and loved ones.
Her daughter, 41-year-old Tiphaine Auziere, also testified that the faux claims had impacted her mother and their whole family, saying there had been a “deterioration of her health” and a “deterioration of her quality of life”.
“She’s constantly having to pay attention to what she wears, how she holds herself because she knows that her image can be distorted,” she said, as per French outlet Le Monde.
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Auziere also said: “Not a day or week goes by when someone does not talk about this to her … What is very hard for her are the repercussions on her family … Her grandchildren hear what is being said: ‘Your grandmother is lying’ or ‘Your grandmother is your grandfather.’
“This affects her a lot. She does not know how to stop it … She’s not elected, she has not sought anything, and she is permanently subjected to these attacks.
“I – as a daughter, a woman and a mother – would not wish her life on anyone.”
The defendants were given sentences that ranged from cyberbullying awareness training to suspended prison sentences of up to eight months.
At the time of writing, Brigitte Macron has not yet commented on the outcome of the case but speaking with TF1 on Sunday evening (4 January) defended her action against cyberbullying, saying such people are “playing with my family tree”.
“A birth certificate is not nothing. It is a father or a mother who goes to declare their child, who says who he is or who she is,” she said of the conspiracy theory about her gender.
“I want to help adolescents to fight against harassment, and if I do not set an example, it will be difficult.”
Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has signed a Russian-style anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda bill into law, with those who violate the legislation set to face fines or detention.
The country’s lower chamber of parliament passed the bill, which bans “information containing propaganda of pedophilia and/or non-traditional sexual orientation in public spaces, as well as in the media”, back in November.
The bill’s passage came despite urgent calls from international rights groups – including Access Now, Civil Rights Defenders, Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Partnership for Human Rights, and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee – for lawmakers to reject the legislation, saying it would “blatantly violate” Kazakhstan’s human rights commitments.
“Adopting an ‘LGBT propaganda ban’ would blatantly violate Kazakhstan’s international human rights commitments, including children’s rights to education, health, and information,” the group of seven organisations said in a statement published on 11 November.
“Discriminatory and rights-violating provisions like those being proposed have no place in any democratic society, which Kazakhstan aspires to be.”
The bill’s second reading was subsequently approved by senators on 18 December and went to Tokayev for signing into law, which he did so on 30 December.
Content that promotes “nontraditional sexual relations and pedophilia” is now officially banned in the country, with those who share it now facing up to 10 days in detention and financial fines of up to 144,500 Kazakh Tenge ($280/£208).
Despite homosexuality being decriminalised in Kazakhstan in 1998, LGBTQ+ rights in the central Asian country – which is an ally of Russia – are dire, with queer people having no protections from employment and housing discrimination, hate crime or conversion therapy. Same-sex marriage is also banned with co-habitation between couples defined as “not be recognised as the marriage (matrimony)” whilst trans people can only access gender-affirming care if they are over the age of 21 and undergo sterilisation.
Many members of the LGBTQ+ community in the country have reported experiencing assaults, threats, blackmail, and extortion at the hands of law enforcement officers, as well as society wide discrimination.
The BBC has allegedly issued a “formal, full and unconditional apology” to a former radio presenter for “repeated incidents of homophobic and discriminatory abuse” which he received while working at the corporation.
Jack Murley, who worked as a presenter for BBC Radio Cornwall for five years, was sacked in 2024 for breaching the BBC’s editorial and social media policies with posts that criticised cuts to local radio and which the broadcaster said failed to be impartial.
Murley took the BBC to employment tribunal in which he alleged he was discriminated against for being a gay man as well as a union representative for the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).
However, in February of this year, employment judge Alastair Smail ruled Murley was not discriminated against and in a subsequent hearing in October judgedthe BBC’s dismissal had been “reasonable”.
A separate internal investigation was carried out by the BBC and allegedly found there had been several instances of Murley experiencing homophobic abuse at the hands of BBC employees and there were “managerial failings” in handling this.
In an update published on social media, Murley said on Thursday (18 December) that he met “in-person” with senior members of the BBC’s management to “receive a formal, full and unconditional apology for repeated incidents of homophobic and discriminatory abuse that I was subjected to while working at the Corporation”.
“The abuse occurred over a number of years, from individuals inside and outside the BBC, and was thoroughly documented in a high-level whistleblowing report compiled by the BBC’s Corporate Investigations Team,” Murley captioned a lengthy post on Instagram detailing his experiences.
“I have known about that report for some time, along with how serious its conclusions are.
“And today, the BBC has confirmed to me that it acknowledges and accepts – without reservation – every single one of that report’s conclusions, and the repeated incidents of homophobic and discriminatory abuse that the Corporation’s own investigators found.”
Murley added: “I’ve written more above – and, as I’m sure you can imagine, it wasn’t easy for me to relive these experiences.
“But for two years, I’ve had my credibility questioned in the most public way possible when I alleged that I was subjected to repeated incidents of homophobic, discriminatory and inappropriate behaviour while working for the BBC.
“Today, the BBC has admitted those incidents occurred – and apologised unconditionally for them. I wasn’t lying. It did happen. I was telling the truth. And today, the BBC has accepted that I was telling the truth as well.”
Murley concluded it will take him “some time to process this” but added: “Your support – today, over the past two years, always – has meant everything.
“So, thank you.”
A spokesperson for the BBC said on the matter: “We welcomed the tribunal judgement, which was widely reported on in October, and won’t be commenting further.”
A trans employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) is suing the Trump administration over its anti-trans executive orders and policies, which the employee says violate federal civil rights law.
Sarah O’Neill, a data scientist at the intelligence agency, has disputed the legality of Executive Order 14168, which was signed by Donald Trump in January following his return to the White House for his second term and stated that the US would henceforth only recognise “two sexes, male and female” and these are “immutable”.
The executive order, titled ‘Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government’, claimed so-called “ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex” have “used” the law to “eradicate the biological reality of sex”.
Trump went on to state his administration will “defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male”.
O’Neill’s lawsuit, which was filed at the U.S. District Court in Maryland, says Trump’s executive order “declares that it is the policy of the United States government to deny Ms. O’Neill’s very existence”.
She said since the executive order was signed her workplace has revoked its policy recognising her as a trans person and her “right to a workplace free of unlawful harassment,” whilst also “prohibiting her from identifying her pronouns as female in written communications” and “barring her from using the women’s restroom at work”.
O’Neill believes the order contravenes Section VII of the Civil Rights Act 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on characteristics such as race and sex, and its later amendments which included gender identity and sexual orientation.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in his legal opinion at the time: “It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.
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“Consider, for example, an employer with two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. The two individuals are, to the employer’s mind, materially identical in all respects, except that one is a man and the other a woman.
“If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleague.
“Or take an employer who fires a transgender person who was identified as a male at birth but who now identifies as a female. If the employer retains an otherwise identical employee who was identified as female at birth, the employer intentionally penalises a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth.
“Again, the individual employee’s sex plays an unmistakable and impermissible role in the discharge decision.”
The ruling went against Trump’s then-first term administration which intervened in the case to argue Title VII provisions should only apply based on the “ordinary meaning of sex” as either male or female and not cover sexual orientation or gender identity.
O’Neill’s lawsuit argues, as quoted by the Associated Press: “The Executive Order rejects the existence of gender identity altogether, let alone the possibility that someone’s gender identity can differ from their sex, which it characterizes as ‘gender ideology.’”
She is seeking for her workplace protections and rights prior to the executive order to be restored alongside financial damages.
Cambridge University’s women-only college is reportedly continuing to welcome trans women, despite the UK Supreme Court ruling on gender.
Newnham College, founded in 1871 and which counts broadcaster Clare Balding, novelist Iris Murdoch and actress Miriam Margolyes among its alumni, is believed to have created a new policy document that allows trans students to access single-sex spaces and facilities.
The decision, reported by MailOnline, comes little more than six months after a decision was handed down in the case of For Women Scotland vs Scottish Ministers, which deemed the definition of “sex” for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act meant biological sex only.
In the wake of the decision, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published interim guidance which recommended organisations, businesses and service providers ban trans men and women from single-sex services and spaces, such as changing rooms and toilets, which aligned with their gender. It also added in “some circumstances” from trans people could be barred from spaces based on “biological sex” too.
The EHRC later clarified that the “circumstances” referred to situations where “reasonable objection” could be taken to a trans person’s presence, such as in female spaces, when “the gender reassignment process has given [a trans man] a masculine appearance or attributes”.
Newnham College is reportedly flying in the face of the Supreme Court ruling. (Canva)
Criticising the college’s decision, postgraduate Maeve Halligan, who founded gender-critical student group the Society of Women, told the Mail: “The category of woman is being totally usurped, hijacked and attacked. Sexism is written into the history of Cambridge University and now it’s come back in disguise.
“This historic college has some of the most famous alumni, such as Germaine Greer. I can only imagine what she would think if she saw [the] new admissions policy.”
In a letter to students, seen by MailOnline, college principal Alison Rose said the policy had been “cleared by lawyers” and meant Newnham would remain inclusive.
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“We are open to all female applicants”
“We are a women-only college, under the provisions of Schedule 12 of the Equality Act 2010 and our charter and statutes,” Rose wrote.
“We are open to all female applicants [and] will consider at the admissions stage those applicants who hold a form of formal identification as female, on a current passport, driving licence, birth certificate or gender recognition certificate.”
Gender-critical campaigner Maya Forstater said Newnham “should have been urgently reconsidering its policy to bring it back into line with the law”, following the Supreme Court’s decision. “Instead it has been looking around for loopholes. This is fruitless and foolish.”
Hannah Caldas has been banned by World Aquatics for five years for refusing to take part in a gender-verification test, but she says if the suspension is the price she has to pay to “protect my most intimate medical information” then she is “happy to pay”.
Caldas, who also goes by Ana, took part in the World Aquatics Masters Championships in Doha in 2024, finishing first in her age category in the women’s 100m freestyle, and also competed in the Spring Nationals run by US Masters Swimming (USMS) in San Antonio, Texas in April, winning several events.
In response to the Masters Swimming competition, anti-trans Republican governor Ken Paxton launched an investigation into the organisation and claimed in a suit it violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act by allowing trans participation.
Paxton’s office sought $10,000 for each alleged trade practice act violation, according to coverage at the time by the Texas Tribune, and the governor labelled Masters Swimming’s policies “insane” and said it “cowered to radical activists pushing gender warfare”.
In August, USMS declared Caldas is eligible to compete in the female category, with a report into her eligibility stating the “documents the swimmer submitted all demonstrate that she was assigned the female sex at birth and that she identifies as female, although she swam in the male category at USMS events 2002-2004”.
However, World Aquatics have ruled the 48-year-old will be suspended for five years until October 2030 and her swimming results from the previous three years – between June 2022 and October 2024 – have been disqualified after she declined to take a gender verification test.
In a statement attributed to a New York Aquatics press release, Caldas declined because “chromosomal tests are invasive and expensive procedures”.
“My life and privacy have been invaded enough”
“My insurance refuses to cover such a test because it is not medically necessary,” she said. “No US state requires genetic tests for recreational sports events like these.
“Not even US Masters Swimming, the national governing body for recreational adult swimming in the US, demands this for any of its events.”
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Caldas continued: “I understand and accept the consequences of not complying with a World Aquatics investigation.
“But if a five-year suspension is the price I must pay to protect my most intimate medical information, then it’s a price I am happy to pay—for myself, and for every other woman who does not want to submit to highly invasive medical testing just to swim in an older-adult competition.”
She added she had been “swimming in sanctioned events for over 30 years” and is “prepared to let it all go”.
“My life and privacy have been invaded enough,” she explained “It is time to prioritise my health and personal safety.”
Lia Thomas reacts after finishing tied for 5th in the 200 Freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on 18 March 2022. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty)
Back in 2022 World Aquatics voted to implement rules which ban trans women from competing in elite races if they have undergone any male puberty.
It was under this policy that trans former University of Pennsylvania swimmer swimmer Lia Thomas, who made history in 2022 as the first trans woman to win a National Collegiate Athletic Association swimming championship, was banned by the swimming body.
Thomas filed a legal dispute against World Aquatics policy with the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland in September 2023.
However, the court rejected her claim that the policy was discriminatory.
As reported by the BBC the ruling outlined that Lia Thomas was “simply not entitled to engage with eligibility to compete in WA competitions” as someone who was no longer a member of USA Swimming – “let alone compete in a WA competition” – and hence was “not sufficiently affected” by the rules to be able to challenge them.
World Aquatics welcomed the court’s decision and said the ruling was a “major step forward in our efforts to protect women’s sports”.
Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb refused to wear a rainbow armband during a game, Olympian Mollie O’Callaghan pledged to no longer compete if trans swimmer Lia Thomas is allowed to, and singer Sam Smith took issue with conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel, as two individuals, using they/them pronouns.
You might have seen these divisive posts on Facebook, you might even have been outraged by them or shared them, but they’re not real – they are anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation falsely framed as legitimate news content.
You only need to make a cursory Google search to see the claims can be easily disproven.
Sports editor David Evans, writing for Sportscasting, concluded the story about Lamb was fabricated because there is absolutely no source for his alleged quote nor did any reputable sports outlet run coverage on it.
Swimming Australia swiftly issued a public statement declaring the comments attributed to O’Callaghan, and subsequently fellow swimmer Kyle Chalmers, were fake.
Sam Smith has been the subject of online misinformation, claiming they are semibisexual. (Didier Messens/Getty)
As important as it is for those impacted by fabricated content to clarify when a piece of information is absolutely not real, the simple fact is that the truth alone is not enough to rectify the power of fake news in this predominantly digital-first era we live in.
At a time when social media fact-checking and moderation is in decline, algorithmic rules govern our social media feeds – often reinforcing our own unconscious biases and echo chambers – and the lines between reality and fantasy are increasingly being blurred by AI, it is more and more difficult for many people to consistently tell fact from fiction.
A user who viewed such fake anti-LGBTQ+ posts as referenced earlier and instantly believes it to be true, perhaps because of their own prejudices and/or lack of skills at verifying the validity of media, would be unlikely to purposefully seek out any fact-checking. They would not think they need to – they saw it on Facebook, you see, so it must be true.
A more discerning user, however, might instantly be able to tell the post is nothing more than clickbait and/or engagement farming, or at the very least it is misleading and perhaps twisting someone’s original words.
Indeed, there are large swathes of the population who believe they are good at spotting fake news but studies frequently find they are often overconfident and still extremely susceptible to it.
They, as much as those who come to their social media feeds with already prejudiced opinions towards LGBTQ+ folks, are being targeted by bad actors seeking to weaponise anti-LGBTQ+ content to sow division in society.
These bad actors create content with the purpose of reaching average people in a society, honing in on their fears and anxieties about the state and future of their community, outraging them and, ultimately, shifting their opinions on queer rights, legislation enacted by their government, the trustworthiness of their elected leaders and undercutting democracy as a whole.
Misinformation and disinformation – two distinctly different but intertwined concepts – are certainly nothing new and have been a part of the media ecosystem as long as verifiable news has been.
While misinformation refers to the spread of falsehoods via genuine misunderstanding or mistake, disinformation is far more sinister and instead refers to the process by which entirely false information is created, propagated and disseminated on purpose, with the aim of pushing a particular narrative or agenda to achieve a set of political goals.
Anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation, on the other hand, includes the far-right “groomer”conspiracy theory which inherently links LGBTQ+ people to vile child abuse, claims pushed by Donald Trump that school teachers are performing gender-affirming surgeries on pupils in classrooms, and the recent posts above falsely attributed to notable athletes and other famous names.
In recent months, there has been an increasing number of posts appearing on social media – namely Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram – which are stylised to look like the image-based breaking news posts often used by media organisations, despite the fact they are being posted by the furthest thing from a news source.
The posts are usually overlaid with a quote or headline and captioned with some sort of breaking news kicker and the start of what looks like copy for a published news story.
In many cases, the same post – using the same image and caption – is shared across various different pages for maximum reach.
Many of the posts consistently appear to be about trans rights, namely the hot button issue of trans inclusion in sports or specific gender identities, with many referencing trans American swimmer Lia Thomas.
In 2022, Thomas made history as the first trans woman to win a National Collegiate Athletic Association swimming championship. She has since become a key figure in the right’s war against trans athletes.
PinkNews was unable to verify who was behind the Facebook pages which are sharing the current wave of anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation.
Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference
However, similar tactics have been used by bad actors in the past and in national security circles as Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), which the EU defines as a “pattern of behaviour that threatens or has the potential to negatively impact values, procedures and political processes” wherein such activity “often seeks to stoke polarisation and divisions inside and outside the EU while also aiming to undermine the EU’s global standing and ability to pursue its policy objectives and interests”.
The report found that anti-LGBTQ+ FIMI is politically motivated and seeks to harden public opinion in opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, along with sowing divisions in communities and undermining democracy.
“The reach of FIMI cases targeting LGBTIQ+ goes beyond this community,” the report reads. “According to the evidence collected during the investigation, FIMI actors aimed to provoke public outrage not only against named LGBTIQ+ individuals, communities, or organisations – but also against government policies, the concept of democracy as such, and local or geopolitical events.
“While undermining LGBTIQ+ people was a common theme in many of the FIMI cases identified, the overarching narrative in many of them was that the West is in decline.
“By leveraging the narrative of decline, FIMI threat actors attempt to drive a wedge between traditional values and democracies.
“They claim that children need to be protected from LGBTIQ+ people, that LGBTIQ+ people get preferential treatment in sports and other fields – to the detriment of others – and that Western liberal organisations or political groups are demonstrably weak because they surrender to “LGBTIQ+ propaganda”.”
Fake content “keeps debates falsely alive”
Speaking to PinkNews, Dr Dani Madrid-Morales – lecturer in journalism and global communication at the University of Sheffield and co-Lead of the university’s Disinformation Research Cluster, said the style of anti-LGBTQ+ posts currently being shared on Facebook are “a very common approach that different actors use”.
Madrid-Morales noted that whilst political actors certainly use these coordinated strategies for a particular end goal, they are also used by isolated individuals who “benefit economically from creating this content that is highly polarizing [and] that’s likely to get a lot of engagement”.
He went on to explain that the content, of course, has a negative impact on the community it is focused on directly but “more broadly, it sort of keeps these debates sometimes falsely alive in the sense that in the political arena”.
“By keeping these debates really highly active on social media, certain groups benefit from being able to say, ‘oh, look, people are really interested in us talking about this’, because a lot of people on social media are discussing these topics and sometimes it’s very artificially inflated.
“We’ve seen that before with other topics, for example health disinformation and anti-vax campaigners, where they create false information.
“They use amplification techniques on social media to get that widely spread, and then they create the false illusion that’s a topic that people are really concerned about when in reality it’s not.”
