Online Homophobia: Hate Speech and Conspiracy Theories towards LGBTQI+ people on Twitter in Spain

Abstract

This article examines hate speech and conspiracy theories against LGBTQI+ people in the Spanish Twittersphere, on the occasion of the celebration of International LGBTQI+ Pride Day and the debates before the entry into force of the Trans Law. A dataset of 410,015 organic tweets in Spanish between 2020 and 2022 was collected using the twarc2 tool in Python, as part of the "Conspiracy Theories and Hate Speech Online: Comparison of patterns in narratives and social networks about COVID-19, immigrants and refugees and LGBTI people [NON-CONSPIRA-HATE!]", PID2021-123983OB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and by FEDER/EU. The data were processed and analysed using several packages in R, following a mixed methods approach. The analysis revealed the existence of several discursive axes of hate and conspiracy thinking, with interconnected patterns of communication. Among the narratives identified, the pathologisation of affective-sexual diversity, biological reductionism, heterosexism and Catholic morality stand out, with ideas associating LGBTQI+ people with paedophilia, indoctrination and genital mutilation of minors, the erasure of cisgender women and the destruction of social order and cultural models.