Pranshu Yadav, a 16-year-old queer youth from Ujjain, full of life and creativity, decided to share their true self on social media. They loved wearing make-up and sarees and wanted to express their identity. But instead of support, Pranshu faced a wave of cyberbullying. Overwhelmed and isolated, they tragically took their own life.
Do queer people only deserve harsh comments, threats, and hate messages on social media? Last I checked, it was supposed to be a platform for diverse voices. Not a bastion of insecure heterosexual men perpetuating the toxic masculinity they have internalised and been socialised in.
Pranshu’s death, which occurred in November last year, is not a one-off incident. It is just one example of what many queer youths face when they come out online. Instead of finding a supportive community, they encounter relentless hurtful and threatening attacks on their identity, which perpetuate the social stigma around homosexuality.
The cyberbullying of queer people has truly reached epic proportions.
Social media has been a change agent over the past decade with many campaigns drawing their lifeblood from a global community of users who stand for the healthy expression of newer ideas and the years of trauma. But with a sustained hate campaign unleashed against the queer community, the gains made appear to be reversing.
Sanat Chaddha, a makeup and fashion influencer from Delhi who identifies as transgender, has called out Instagram for not taking responsibility for the hate speech queer people face on the platform. She has regularly received abusive comments like “ch*kka”, “nari with aari”, “a shame on Sikhism” coupled with numerous Hindi expletives. Yuvraj Acharya, another social media influencer from Delhi, shared a comment on their reel that they should not post about being openly gay because children may get influenced by “wrong things”. Nearly every post of Yuvraj’s has some comment on how they have “a mental health issue”.
These self-appointed guardians of morality must look within. It is their mental health that is questionable. In fact, such individuals should be made examples before the younger generation and told ‘how not to behave online’.
Similar abuses have been thrown at Ella D’ Verma, who is one of the most famous trans social media influencers, with over 300K followers on Instagram. Apart from the regular nasty comments, several reels and posts on her have gone viral from time to time where her transformation from a boy to a girl has been used as meme material. To add to this, her dating life, which she is very open about, has given Instagram bullies more fodder to ridicule trans people.
And (surprise, surprise), this is all getting progressively worse. Comments on Instagram aren’t limited to abuses anymore; they also advocate self-harm and murder. A random comment on one of Sanat’s reels read: “My dad would’ve stabbed me if I was you,” while another read “You should give up.” Pranshu had received multiple comments telling him to die. As Newslaundry reported, people continued writing such comments even after his suicide, even stooping to the extent of celebrating the teen’s death.
Jeet, the founder of Yes, We Exist – an LGBTQ advocacy group on Instagram – told The Daily Beast how the cyberbullying that queer people face includes death threats, posts promoting the extermination of all LGBTQ+ people, and dehumanising language. They also mention how “almost always the abusers on Instagram are teenage boys and young men.”
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Need for solidarity and support
When such vile comments abound, it is natural that many queer youths active on social media may feel isolated and rejected. Such feelings can get pronounced if they lack the support of friends and family. In an Instagram story, a few days after Pranshu’s death, Sanat shared how her experience has been different from most in India. While her family acts as a support system for her, most in India seldom have that privilege.
Both Sanat and Yuvraj have had their supportive mothers appear in their reels. In a reel, Sanat’s father is seen with her, celebrating her queerness. This was in response to comments like – “fatherless behaviour at its peak” and “dad left a long time ago”.
However, on a platform where queerphobia is rife, there also exist several examples of queer solidarity. Apart from groups like Yes, We Exist, which takes up issues such as homophobia on Instagram, there are instances of individual initiative too. Anish Bhagat, an openly gay social media influencer, flew all the way to Nepal to express their solidarity with Gaurav Sitoula. Gaurav’s dance reels and videos had gone viral for all the wrong reasons. Rather than getting appreciation for his dancing skills, he was massively bullied for not behaving “like a man”. His dance moves were apparently too feminine. Gaurav does not claim to be queer, but he was sure branded one without his consent. Waves of solidarity and outcry also emerged after Pranshu’s death when queer groups and individuals said enough is enough.
We need more such acts of showing up and not just from the queer community to fight the hate.
So yes, Instagram continues to remain a toxic and even dangerous space for queer youths trying to express themselves. But this poison is only fuelling their courage and solidarity.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)