Rising populism is stoking homophobia across Europe, say campaigners

Rise in hate speech against LGBT+ community could lead to spike in violence, researchers say

Activists at a Pride march in Madrid, where some politicians have criticised LGBT groups (AFP via Getty Images)

Homophobic hate crimes are on the rise across Europe as socially conservative politics fuels division, according to a report by an advocacy group.

ILGA-Europe, a pro-LGBT+ campaign organisation, said it had recorded an increase in hate speech by religious and political leaders in 17 European nations.

As well as eastern Europe, where traditionalist opposition to gay rights is commonplace, there was a growing willingness by some populist politicians to criticise LGBT+ people.

“It’s not just countries of eastern Europe where people traditionally think there is more organised opposition — the groups that are opposing LGBTI equality are popping up in more places,” said Evelyne Paradis, the executive director of ILGA-Europe.

“Those groups tend to be more active where there is overall insecurity and anxiety in the population, where the overall political discourse, not just on LGBTI rights, is a bit more toxic, where populist parties are very active.”

As evidence, ILGA-Europe cited cases across the continent where political figures felt emboldened to condemn LGBT+ advocacy.

In Finland, a former interior minister attacked a Pride march as endorsing that which is “against God’s will” and described gay relationships as “sinful and shameful”.

The nationalist far-right Vox party has also surged to prominence in Spain in recent years, with one of its Madrid lawmakers also attacking the city’s Pride march in 2019. Rocio Monasterio said the celebrations would “denigrate the dignity of people” while “impregnating the centre with an unhealthy and unbearable stench”.

In Hungary meanwhile, the speaker of parliament has equated gay pride with paedophilia and the government has pulled out of the Eurovision song contest, reportedly because it is “too gay” for the nation’s conservative ruling party.

Poland’s nationalist government campaign against what it called “LGBT ideology” during last year’s election campaign, and the then-deputy prime minister of Italy, Matteo Salvini, spoke at a conference in March 2019 that promoted “natural families” over LGBT+ adoption.

However, ILGA-Europe’s report is not based on hate crime data across Europe, instead referring to what it described as a “heavy trend” of anti-LGBT+ hate speech.

A 2018 report by the EU’s own agency, which promotes human rights, found many member states were not adequately collecting data on hate crimes and recommended all police forces be trained to assess whether prejudice was a motivating factor when investigating crime.

Rising hate speech has been linked to spikes in violence, according to research by Helga Eggebo, a Norwegian scientist at the Nordland Research Institute.

“There is a relationship between general negative attitudes, hate speech and violent crime against minority groups,” she said. “For example, there was a documented rise in violent hate crime against Muslim women after 9/11.”

But Ms Paradis said alongside rising homophobia were successes for the LGBT+ movement, including more and more legal recognition of same-sex unions, parental rights for gay couples, and moves to ban conversion therapy.