This year, like almost all years before, LGBTQ+ Pride month is taking place at a time of burgeoning anti-LGBTQ+ violence, harassment, and criticism. Lawmakers and regulators are passing legislation restricting freedom of expression and privacy for LGBTQ+ individuals and fueling offline intolerance. Online platforms are also complicit in this pervasive ecosystem by censoring pro-LGBTQ+ speech, forcing LGBTQ+ individuals to self-censor or turn to VPNs to avoid being profiled, harassed, doxxed, or criminally prosecuted. Unfortunately, these risks look likely to continue, threatening LGBTQ+ individuals and the fight for queer liberation.
This Pride, we’re here to help build an online space where you get to decide what aspects of yourself you share with others, how you present to the world, and what things you keep private.
We know that it feels overwhelming thinking about how to protect yourself online in the face of these issues—whether that's best practices for using gay dating apps like Grindr and Her, how to download a VPN to see and interact with banned LGBTQ+ content, methods for posting pictures from events and protests without outing your friends, or how to argue over your favorite queer musicians’ most recent problematic takes without being doxxed.
That's why this LGBTQ+ Pride month, we’re launching an LGBT Q&A. Throughout Pride, we’ll be answering your most pressing digital rights questions on EFF’s Instagram and TikTok accounts. Comment your questions under these posts on Instagram and TikTok, and we’ll reply directly. Want to stay anonymous? Submit your questions via a secure link on our website and we’ll answer these in separate posts.
Everyone needs guidance and protection from prying eyes. This is especially true for those of us who face consequences when intimate details around gender or sexual identities are revealed without consent. This Pride, we’re here to help build an online space where you get to decide what aspects of yourself you share with others, how you present to the world, and what things you keep private.
No question is too big or too small! But comments that discriminate against marginalized groups, including the LGBTQ+ community, will not be engaged with.
The fight for the safety and rights of LGBTQ+ people is not just a fight for visibility online (and offline)—it’s a fight for survival. Now more than ever, it's essential to collectivize information sharing to not only make the digital world safer for LGBTQ+ individuals, but to make it a space where people can have fun, share memes, date, and build communities without facing repression and harm. Join us to make the internet private, safe, and full of gay pride.
