Increase in violence since 2019 is linked to online campaigns seeking to sow disinformation and fuel hatred
A Malta Pride participant carries a giant rainbow flag during the parade in Valletta. Photograph: Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters
Europeans who do not fit the typical definition of male or female are grappling with an “alarming” rise in violence, the EU’s leading rights agency has said, as concerted campaigns seek to sow disinformation and fuel hatred towards them.
The findings from the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights, published on Tuesday, were based on responses from 1,920 people in 30 countries across Europe. All of them identified as intersex, an umbrella term referring to those with innate variations of sex characteristics and which can also include people who identify as trans, non-binary and gender diverse.
It found that since 2019, the rates of violence and harassment against intersex people have sharply increased – particularly among those who identify as trans, non-binary and gender diverse – far outpacing the increases reported by others in the LGBTQ+ community.
One in three surveyed, 34%, said they had been physically or sexually assaulted in the five years prior to the survey, up from 22% in 2019. Between 2019 and 2023, the rate of reported hate-motivated harassment had almost doubled, from 42% to 74%.
The survey also found that more than half, 57%, of respondents said they had been subjected “without their informed consent” to surgery or other medical treatment to modify their sex characteristics, while 39% said they were put through so-called conversion practices aimed at changing their sexual orientation or gender, compared with a rate of 25% among all LGBTQ+ groups.
The Vienna-based agency linked the rise to a wider climate of “increasing or persisting intolerance and bigotry, as well as intense online hatred campaigns” that had “instrumentalised” the LGBT+ community.
“Disinformation campaigns fomenting intolerance and prejudice are often waged by foreign and domestic actors acting to undermine European and western democracies and core values, such as dignity, equality and diversity,” the agency noted.
The result was a “weaponising” of the fact that many people know little about those who identify as intersex, trans, non-binary and gender diverse, allowing these campaigns to spread disinformation and “fuel hatred and violence against them”, it said.
The report echoes organisations across Europe, who have long warned of politicians using parliament, political rallies and media interviews to fuel anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and normalise discrimination across the continent.
In its findings this week, the EU agency warned that the impact of this discrimination was far-reaching for those who identify as intersex. “Their repeated victimisation and the multiple and compounded challenges they face can lead to severe exclusion and critical life situations such as homelessness, suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts.”
More than half of the intersex people surveyed, 53%, said they had contemplated suicide in the prior year. The figure was notably higher than the overall rate of 37% reported across all LGBTIQ groups.
The EU agency called on countries to add sex characteristics to the protected grounds in anti-discrimination legislation and do more to combat hate crimes and hate speech aimed at intersex people.
Their struggle requires an urgent response, said Sirpa Rautio, the director of the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights. “Intersex people in the EU experience alarming levels of exclusion, discrimination and violence,” she said in a statement. “They must be provided with targeted support that addresses their specific needs to ensure they can enjoy their fundamental rights and live in dignity.”
Category: Courts / Laws / legal
“Lewdness” Arrests Up at NYC Penn Station Bathrooms, Police Likely Using Sniffies
https://www.them.us/story/nyc-penn-station-sniffies-arrests
20 people were reportedly arrested in a single day this month.
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Since June, Amtrak Police officers have arrested dozens of people for alleged “public lewdness” at New York City’s Penn Station, a sting operation that sent at least one person to an ICE detention facility — and which one university professor says was conducted, in part, through popular cruising apps like Sniffies.
The most important LGBTQ+ news and politics stories delivered straight to your inboxBy signing up, you agree to our user agreement (including class action waiver and arbitration provisions), and acknowledge our privacy policy.As reported by NYC news outlet The City on Wednesday, Amtrak Police arrested 23 people for public lewdness in June — LGBTQ+ Pride Month — after making only eight such arrests in the five months prior. “Lewdness” arrest numbers have remained high since then, according to the NYC-based Legal Aid Society, which told The City that 20 people were arrested for lewdness at Penn Station in a single day in September.
One of the people arrested in June was David, a 31-year-old gay man and healthcare worker who said he was arrested while trying to use a Penn Station urinal on his way home from visiting a friend. He was wearing a rainbow bracelet. David told The City that he was taken to a cell inside the station and handcuffed to a wall, at which point he heard one officer tell others “we got three more fag pervs.” The lewdness charge against him was eventually dropped, but David said he was “traumatized” by the experience.
Immigration attorney Danney Salvatierra also told The City that one of her clients, an asylum seeker from Mexico, was arrested by Amtrak Police while using the bathroom at Penn in July and immediately handed off to ICE agents. Salvatierra said the arrest documents did not contain a charge against her client, who spent over a month in a detention facility before being released by a judge.
Last week, City University of New York (CUNY) law professor Jared Trujillo posted a TikTok video warning others about sting operations in Penn Station bathrooms. Trujillo claims that police have been using Sniffies to lure potential cruisers to a bathroom near a police booth, then arrest them. The arrests come during a marked increase in visibility for Sniffies through print media like The New Yorker and New York Magazine, though Trujillo pointed out that the platform wasn’t the only way police have targeted travelers.
“There are other instances where officers will approach someone who’s at a urinal, the officer will touch himself or will just peer at the person, and if the person — who is there just trying to pee — responds in any way, that person is then arrested or at least charged with lewdness,” Trujillo said in his video. (In his comments to The City, David said he felt “watched” by a nearby man shortly before his arrest.) Trujillo further noted that such stings closely resemble tactics used in the past decade by Port Authority police, who settled a class action lawsuit over similar arrests in 2022, promising to end plainclothes bathroom patrols and step up sensitivity training.
“Police have long weaponized constitutionally dubious tactics to target men they perceive as gay. Officers sometimes expose or touch themselves, or leer at men, only to arrest the man — even when he has done nothing wrong,” Trujillo told Them in a statement Wednesday. “These arrests are about padding numbers, not public safety. They waste resources and inflict trauma, and the charges can carry devastating immigration and employment consequences. The Port Authority police engaged in the same conduct until Legal Aid sued and forced a settlement in 2022.”
Trujillo urged LGBTQ+ people to exercise caution when dealing with the police to reduce the chance of harm. “If you are arrested, invoke your right to remain silent and ask for an attorney,” he told Them. “Do not consent to police searching your phone.”
The arrests come during a marked increase in visibility for Sniffies through print media like The New Yorker and New York Magazine.
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Samantha Riedel is a writer and editor whose work on transgender culture and politics has previously appeared in VICE, Bitch Magazine, and The Establishment. She lives in Massachusetts, where she is presently at work on her first manuscript. … Read More
Politicians demonizing LGBTQ+ people for electoral success is a global phenomenon
John Russell (He/Him)September 11, 2025, 2:00 pm EDTShutterstock
Politicians across the globe used anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in their campaigns last year, according to a new report from LGBTQ+ rights NGO Outright International.
The organization’s just-released report “Queering Democracy: The Global Elections in 2024 and How LGBTIQ People Fared” examines “how LGBTIQ people navigated, participated in, and shaped electoral processes” in 60 countries and the European Union last year. Among its key findings, the report says that anti-LGBTQ+ hate became a widespread campaign strategy around the world even as queer and trans people made gains in some of the same countries.
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Outright International describes 2024 as a “super election year” in which more than 1.5 billion people in 73 countries voted. But, they say, “this historic moment also came at a time of democratic backsliding, when LGBTIQ communities and other marginalized groups were among the first to feel the impacts of shrinking freedoms.” The organization describes LGBTQ+ communities as “canaries in the coal mine — among the first targets when democratic norms erode.”
According to Outright International, “In at least 51 of the 61 jurisdictions studied, political candidates weaponized anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric for electoral gain.” Politicians, the organization found, “demonized ‘gender ideology,’ labeled LGBTIQ people as ‘foreign agents,’ and scapegoated sexual and gender minorities to deflect from policy failures. In some countries, elections devolved into what one observer called ‘a competition of who was the most homophobic.’”
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Sign UpThe report cites leaders in Jordan, Czechia, Portugal, and Namibia among those who scapegoated LGBTQ+ people in an attempt to distract voters from their own governance failures. Uruguay, Panama, Australia, Moldova, and the United Kingdom were among 27 countries in which politicians explicitly used the specter of so-called “gender ideology,” “gender madness,” and “indoctrination” to demonize LGBTQ+ people and particularly transgender people.
And leaders across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East stoked both xenophobia and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment by describing gender and sexual diversity as the result of malign foreign influence. According to the report, anti-LGBTQ+ political rhetoric led to social media harassment and calls for violence as well as real-world crackdowns on the LGBTQ+ communities in Tunisia and Romania.
“You talk with a politician from Peru… or Hungary or the UK, you start to see common trends and you realize that it’s a global, coordinated and increasingly well-funded effort to diminish LGBTIQ people,” Outright International’s Alberto de Belaúnde told The Guardian.
Even ostensibly pro-LGBTQ+ parties and politicians in some countries appeared to turn on the community. As the report notes, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis claimed his New Democracy party “certainly suffered political damage” for supporting marriage equality. And in the U.S., some Democrats “blamed the party’s crushing defeat on the party’s perceived support for trans people’s rights, despite surveys showing that these issues were not a primary concern for voters.”
The report also includes a four-page case study on Republicans’ anti-trans messaging and misinformation during the 2024 U.S. election cycle, including the GOP candidate’s campaign’s $17 million investment in anti-trans ads. It concludes that the 2024 election cycle “highlights the vulnerability of marginalized communities to targeted misinformation, underscoring an urgent need for ongoing vigilance and robust advocacy to protect human rights amid escalating political adversity.”
The report also found that, while there was no evidence of laws explicitly denying LGBTQ+ people the right to vote, the community nonetheless faces significant barriers to participating in the democratic process around the world — fear of violence, political disillusionment, and lack of legal gender recognition among them.
Despite those barriers, Outright International says that LGBTQ+ communities consistently came out to defend democracy in the face of authoritarian movements in their home countries, most notably in Bangladesh, Türkiye, and Georgia.
Alongside its dire warnings about what de Belaúnde called a “weaponization” of anti-LGBTQ+ hate, the Queering Democracy report also highlighted significant political gains for LGBTQ+ people around the world. LGBTQ+ candidates ran for office in 36 countries last year, including for the first time in Botswana, Namibia, and Romania. It also notes trailblazing transgender candidates in Venezuela, El Salvador, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the U.S., where Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) became the first openly trans member of Congress.
The report includes a long list of recommendations for electoral management bodies, election monitoring organizations, political leaders, and candidates on how to combat anti-LGBTQ+ tactics. These include holding political parties and candidates accountable for hate speech, engaging with LGBTQ+ communities in developing political platforms, and supporting queer candidates.
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Trump’s America: Rising Beef Prices And Farmers Going Broke
Some clips from recent Majority Report that I enjoyed.
FBI’s War On Trans People | Ken Klippenstein | TMR
An important report on how the tRump bigots and trans people haters are targeting trans people. It shows how clearly they are lying and spreading disinformation so they can erase trans people from society. They flood the media at the first sign of violence yet never correct the misinformation when they are found to be wrong. The goal is to make the US a straight cis only society. They will be coming for the rest of the LGBTQ+ community as soon as they feel they win erasing the trans people. Remember they have made the pride flag political and forbidden to be displayed but the southern confederate battle flag is still allowed. Hugs
Investigative journalist, Ken Klippenstein joins the show to discuss the Trump administration’s manipulation of recent shootings to bolster their war on trans people. Live-streamed on September 25, 2025
ICE Violence Is OUT OF CONTROL
As the guest host says, running into an ICE group is terrifying. They are untrained and are extremely abusive to people. The video show how the ICE guy drew his gun while laying on top of the person then put it into his belt. Later he lost both his gun and his ammo clip. Yet there are no controls on these masked people. So many kidnappings are going to happen by every group of sexual traffickers, and how is the public to know who is real official or not. This is pure Stephen Miller. I was a trained auxiliary deputy sheriff. Had I done anything like this I would have been in court and regardless I would have been fired. Hugs
Some News In Kansas
This story came first, then the second article. It’s interesting, because it’s not a protest, or anything, it’s simple local ordinance. (Ordinances = the law here.)
Federal government accuses Kansas town of ‘aggressive and unlawful’ interference with CoreCivic
By:Morgan Chilson-September 23, 20255:39 pm
TOPEKA — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday joined a private prison company in its legal fight with Leavenworth city officials, accusing the city of “aggressive and unlawful” interference with immigration enforcement.
The DOJ filed a statement of interest in the case in U.S. District Court, signed by the assistant U.S. attorney general’s office.
“The United States has a strong interest in countering state and local efforts to harass federal contractors, in the proper application of the Constitution and its Supremacy Clause, and in the foundational principles that protect the Federal Government from unconstitutional state and local interference,” the filing said.
A statement of interest authorizes the U.S. attorney general to become a non-party in a suit pending in any court in the country, the filing said.
CoreCivic and the city of Leavenworth have been fighting in court for months over the city’s requirement that CoreCivic go through its development process to receive a special use permit before reopening its prison facility at 100 Highway Terrace.
Nashville-based CoreCivic announced in March that it would reopen the prison facility, which closed in 2021, to house Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.
CoreCivic and the city have a hearing scheduled Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Topeka as part of an appeal of a Kansas court’s decision barring CoreCivic from housing ICE detainees while the case about the development permit is being heard.
CoreCivic has alleged in multiple filings that Leavenworth officials are violating the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution and interfering with the operations of the federal government. That clause sets federal laws as supreme over state laws.
The U.S. government’s statement Tuesday pushed that argument forward, saying that it is “especially true” in relationship to immigration.
“Defendants have violated the Supremacy Clause by attempting to stymie the Federal Government’s immigration-related operations at 100 Highway Terrace,” the federal filing said, citing multiple cases to support its arguments that federal contractors are free from state control.
“This well-settled principle has been consistently applied to invalidate state and local laws that impose requirements on federal contractors,” the filing said.
The city’s efforts to prevent CoreCivic from housing immigration detainees at its prison, recently renamed the Midwest Regional Reception Center, is an attempt to regulate the federal government’s efforts to house detainees at that facility and violates the supremacy clause, the filing said.
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Kansas town to continue legal push against CoreCivic, despite federal involvement
By:Morgan Chilson-September 24, 20254:45 pm
TOPEKA — Leavenworth officials aren’t backing down from holding private prison company CoreCivic accountable to development regulations even after the U.S. Department of Justice jumped into the case Tuesday.
The DOJ filed a statement of interest in the U.S. District Court case between Nashville-based CoreCivic and Leavenworth, arguing the city was violating the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution.
“The federal government’s filing does not change our view of the case or the approach we plan to take,” said W. Joseph Hatley, a Kansas City, Missouri, attorney representing the city of Leavenworth. “The arguments in that filing mirror arguments CoreCivic has previously made, without success.”
The clause says federal laws are supreme over state laws, and in its filing, the DOJ said Leavenworth is interfering in the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Leavenworth Mayor Holly Pittman has said the city’s fight over reopening CoreCivic’s prison isn’t driven by politics, despite repeated outcry from Leavenworth residents against housing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.
She said the city is concerned about holding businesses accountable to their development regulations, which would require CoreCivic to apply for a special use permit.
Earlier this year, CoreCivic announced it planned to reopen its prison facility in Leavenworth to fulfill an ICE contract that would pay the company $4.2 million per month. But Leavenworth officials contend the company must follow the city’s revised development process and apply for a special use permit.
In court filings, the city’s attorneys highlighted issues with CoreCivic’s operation of its previous prison, which closed in 2021, including failing to cooperate with Leavenworth police and failure to report the death of an inmate for six days. Leavenworth officials have said a special use permit would allow them to address such problems.
U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse on Wednesday set a hearing on a CoreCivic motion for a preliminary injunction for 3 p.m. Nov. 25, Hatley said.
CoreCivic is appealing a Kansas district court decision to stop the company from housing ICE detainees as the legal disagreement with Leavenworth goes through the courts.
Trump’s Cult And Christian America
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Israel: A Society In Denial
This is incredibly disgusting and horrific. The Israeli media is pushing garbage, lies, and misinformation on the Israeli public. They don’t believe what other news sources say about starving children or women. One Israeli man said he was going into the military in two months and hoped to be sent to Gaza to kill the Palestinians. When asked about the women and children he claimed there were no innocents, that they were all Hamas. He was asked about kids, little kids and babies his answer were they were either Hamas or terrorists or future terrorists. Better to kill the babies now rather than them growing up to hurt an Israeli. Only one couple called for an end to the war. The others demand Hamas release the hostages. The surrounding crowd did not believe them when they said that Hamas was willing to return the hostages in exchange for stopping the war but Netanyahu killed the negotiations. They are as brained washed as Fox viewers and when the truth comes out they will be living in Palestinian land claiming innocence because they willfully did not know of what the military was doing. Oh well water under the bridge they will claim. I am seriously anti-Israel’s government and military. I think they are equal to Hitlers government and supporters. They need to suffer the same fate. Following orders doesn’t cut it. Being Jewish is not a pass for committing genocide. Never again is for all people or it is not for any people. Best wishes for all and hugs for those that want them.
Scottie's Playtime 