Inner West Council Removes Trans and Gender Diverse Post After Online Abuse
A social media post promoting a transgender and gender diverse swim night hosted by Inner West Council has received a deluge of abusive and transphobic comments, causing the post to be removed from .
Earlier this month, Council announced that Ashfield Aquatic Centre would be hosting a free, exclusive swim night for the local trans and gender diverse community, as well as allies, friends, partners and families.
While the announcement was initially embraced online, a barrage of abusive comments on Monday night, believed to have come from users overseas, forced the post to be taken down.Inner West Greens councillor Dylan Griffiths said on Tuesday morning that “100s of transphobes and far-right” people mainly from the United States and the United Kingdom were involved in the abuse, tweeting that he was “proud to be part of a council that supports trans [and non-binary] people.”Cr Griffiths told Star Observer on Wednesday that “after looking at some of the profiles that were engaging in trolling, these were people who really do peddle very hateful views towards a variety of marginalised groups.” He believed that the abuse was coming from overseas and not from people in the Inner West.
Professor at the University of NSW Centre for Social Research in Health, Christy Newman, who focuses on LGBTQI health and wellbeing, told Star Observerthat trolling and online hatred can “worsen the mental health issues that are already higher among this part of the community than others.” They added that “public facilities and environments like swimming pools can feel unsafe or unwelcoming to trans and gender diverse people,” and there was “reason to create deliberately safe spaces in our local communities.” The swim event comes after Inner.
