Online Hate Fuels Attacks on Gender-Affirming Care Providers: Report
Anti-transgender rhetoric by right-wing sources is a primary motivator of attacks on gender-affirming care for young people and the hospitals that provide it, says a new report from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.The foundation — the educational arm of HRC — released the report, “Online Harassment, Offline Violence: Unchecked Harassment of Gender-Affirming Care Providers and Children’s Hospitals on Social Media, and its Offline Violent Consequences,” Tuesday.“Social media posts from accounts like Libs of TikTok and Matt Walsh kick off a cycle of harassment and stigma, with the ultimate goal of inciting violence and shutting down access to lifesaving and medically necessary gender affirming care,” the report says.Foundation researchers identified online harassment campaigns against 24 different hospitals and health care providers across 21 states between August and November alone.
Some of the highest-profile attacks were on Boston Children’s Hospital.“Following a series of social media posts from right-wing provocateur Libs of TikTok that claimed Boston Children’s Hospital’s (BCH) Gender was performing hysterectomies on minors and thus the hospital ‘needs to be shut down,’ BCH has received three separate bomb threats, forcing temporary lockdowns and evacuations,” the report notes.
