LGBTQIA+ hate

Slurs and hate speech targeting the LGBTQIA+ community can be subject to legal – and disciplinary – action.

Illustration: A person curses loudly into his cell phone. Two people stand expressionless next to it with question marks in a shared thought bubble.

Using slurs and hate speech targeting the LGBTQIA+ community, even in jest or horsing around, shapes how others see you: as a professional, a colleague, a business partner, and as a human being. Moreover, it can have serious repercussions for everyone around you. LGBTQIA+ abuse threatens the mental and physical health of those victimized and poses severe safety risks for the environment in which it occurs.

Doesn't resonate with

  • The generation born between the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2010s
  • People in the LGBTQIA+ community
  • People with an ancestal or cultural background that is not white

Dig deeper

Language calculated to wound, upset, anger, intimidate, or embarrass people in the LGBTQIA+  constitutes bullying or harassment – verbal, physical, social, or psychological abuse. People who witness such abuse go unpunished are more likely to perceive the shared space as less safe and the abuse itself as acceptable.

Whether they're attributed to homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, or acephobia, many words describing people in the LGBTQIA+ community have a fraught and violent history. Some slurs have been reclaimed by the very communities that were their original targets. Hearing people in the community use reclaimed terms to refer to themselves does not mean you are allowed to use them, too. 

What you can do to support the LGBTQIA+ community
  • Share your pronouns.
  • Ask people how they would like you to refer to them.
  • Listen.
  • Educate yourself.
  • Amplify their voices.
Figure: 34% of LGBT employees have left a job due to treatment by their employer. Source: Williams Institute, USLA, September 2021 Figure: 50 % of LGBT employees are not out to their current employer. Source: Williams Institute, UCLA, September 2021

Shout-outs

Read on

Witty Talks Episode #5: Challenging the binary (German)

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