A POPULAR Scottish Twitter/X account has spoken out against a rise in LGBT+ abuse online.
Ballot Box Scotland, which analyses and discusses Scottish elections and polling data, posted a message on the social media site saying, “we are fully back in 1980s/90s style lies and fearmongering about LGBT+ people”.
The account also shared a screenshot of an attack on Scottish Greens councillor Blair Anderson following a tweet he had shared about the Scottish Government’s conversion therapy ban consultation.
In a thread on Twitter/X, Ballot Box Scotland said: “I’d take it as a personal kindness if elected representatives, at a time when fellow LGBTI+ elected representatives are receiving death threats and have to carry alarms with them at all times due to the climate, stopped actively contributing to the rising tide of queerphobia.
I'd take it as a personal kindness if elected representatives, at a time when fellow LGBTI+ elected representatives are receiving death threats and have to carry alarms with them at all times due to the climate, stopped actively contributing to the rising tide of queerphobia.
— Ballot Box Scotland (@BallotBoxScot) January 11, 2024
“I’d love it if those of you who personally regularly use Ballot Box Scotland content to cheer your parties successes, and celebrate your opponents’ losses, would consider that the gay man who runs this project also sees when you are implying my community is a threat to children.
“We are fully back in 1980s/90s style lies and fearmongering about LGBTI+ people, and I cannot believe I feel the need to keep pointing out this isn’t okay, and as a gay person with (some degree of) platform in Scottish politics I am not going to stop doing so.”
The next post then shared abuse which had been targeted at Anderson and added: “This is a screengrab I took last night.
“This is the kind of terrifying, violent hate speech that has become all too common in Scottish/UK politics, and which elected representatives have fanned the flames of. Stop it before someone gets killed.
“And if you can face it, go look at the replies to Blair’s QT. Someone here calling for ‘vigilante parents’ to ‘deal with’ a politician, and people saying that doesn’t look like a death threat.”
Anderson’s post had been about the Scottish Government’s conversion therapy ban consultation which was published on Tuesday and details ministers’ plans to criminalise the practice.
The thread continued: “People suggesting ‘queer’ is an ‘ideology created (to) be a paedophile. The thing is, this stuff is scary but also? I pity these people.
“Imagine having so little good in your life, so little decency and kindness in your soul, that you log onto a website to spend all day shouting abuse at people you’ve never met.
“Must be miserable living like that.”
