A year after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk finalized his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, some LGBTQ+ people say the once-hospitable home for community building has turned toxic. Monica Rose, a transgender person who lives in Toronto, joined Twitter in 2008. She said that at that time, the platform felt like a friendly group of people. But Rose’s feelings about the platform quickly changed after Musk took it over in October 2022. In November, he reinstated numerous accounts that the previous Twitter management had suspended, often for anti-LGBTQ+ harassment, and he began to lay off employees who worked on reducing abuse, such as misinformation and harassment. Then, on June 2, this year, Musk shared an anti-trans video, propelling it to more than 190 million views. After Musk bought the platform, Rose said, she would report accounts she believed would have previously violated its policy against hate speech, but she would receive responses that said there was no violation, and the accounts would remain active. Eventually, Rose could not keep up with the amount of hate she was facing, and she ultimately left the platform. In the past year many other LGBTQ+ people have also abandoned the platform.
