When harassment becomes routine, it stops feeling like an incident
Across nine European nations, a sweeping survey has illuminated what many in the LGBTQ community have long endured in silence: a digital landscape saturated with hostility, where insults, threats, and even death wishes arrive with such regularity that reporting them has come to feel futile. Conducted by Spain's FELGTB federation among nearly 1,700 participants, the study reveals not merely the scale of online hatred but the quiet resignation it has produced — a community withdrawing from shared spaces rather than trusting institutions to defend them. It is a portrait of violence made invisible by its own abundance, and of legal frameworks that exist on paper while failing almost entirely in practice.
- The numbers are staggering: 95% of LGBTQ respondents were insulted online, nearly a third received death threats, and over a quarter faced threats of sexual assault — a relentless barrage that left few untouched.
- The psychological damage is not incidental but cumulative — anger, sadness, anxiety, and fear reported by majorities of those harassed, reshaping how they move through digital life.
- Rather than fighting back or seeking justice, 30% of respondents simply retreated, reducing their social media presence and surrendering spaces that had become especially vital during the pandemic.
- Despite hate crime classifications existing across the EU, only 5% of victims filed police reports — nearly half citing the harassment as too frequent to bother reporting, a normalization that signals systemic collapse.
- FELGTB president Uge Sangil is calling for stronger EU-wide legislation and greater awareness, while the organization's Safetobe initiative attempts to help individuals recognize and navigate hate crimes online.
- The gap between the violence occurring and the silence surrounding it is where the deepest harm resides — a structural failure that legislation has named but institutions have not yet learned to address.
Nearly seven in ten LGBTQ people across Europe have experienced online harassment in the past five years — insulted, threatened, and in many cases told they should die. These findings emerge from a survey of 1,674 participants across nine countries, conducted by Spain's FELGTB federation, and they sketch a digital reality of sustained, targeted hostility.
The statistics are unsparing. Ninety-five percent reported social media insults. Fifty-seven percent received threats. Nearly a third were threatened with death. Twenty-nine percent were attacked after disclosing their identity. The psychological toll was equally measurable: majorities reported anger, sadness, and anxiety, while fear and depression trailed close behind. Thirty percent responded by withdrawing from social media altogether — retreating from spaces that, especially during the pandemic, had become essential to community and connection.
And yet, almost no one reported it. Only five percent of those who experienced cyberhate filed a police report, even though such attacks are legally classified as hate crimes across the region. The most common reason for silence was devastating in its simplicity: it happened too often to bother.
FELGTB president Uge Sangil called the pattern a policy failure, urging stronger legislation across EU member states and insisting that online hate crimes be treated with the same seriousness as physical acts of prejudice-driven violence. The organization also pointed to Safetobe, a resource to help people identify and report online hate crimes — a practical step, though one that cannot substitute for the structural reforms the data demands. The violence is documented. The response, so far, has not matched it.
Nearly seven in ten LGBTQ people across Europe have been harassed online in the past five years. They have been insulted, threatened, attacked. Some have been told they should die. And almost none of them reported it to the police.
These numbers come from a survey conducted across nine European countries—Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the United Kingdom—by the Spanish State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans and Bisexual People, known as FELGTB. The study gathered responses from 1,674 LGBTQ participants and painted a stark picture of what online life looks like for members of this community.
The specifics are brutal. Ninety-five percent of respondents reported being insulted on social media. More than half—57 percent—received threats. Nearly a third were threatened with death. Twenty-nine percent said they were attacked after disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity. Twenty-seven percent experienced sexual assault threats. The harassment was relentless and varied in form, but consistent in its hostility.
The psychological weight of this abuse registered clearly in the data. Seventy-two percent of those harassed reported feeling anger. Seventy percent felt sadness. Fifty-seven percent experienced anxiety. Fifty-one percent lived with fear. These were not abstract statistics—they were the emotional aftermath of sustained, targeted aggression. The cumulative effect was visible in behavior: thirty percent of survey respondents reduced how much they used social media, effectively withdrawing from digital spaces where they might otherwise connect, express themselves, or simply exist.
Yet when it came to reporting these incidents to authorities, the numbers collapsed. Only five percent of people who experienced cyberhate filed a report with police, despite the fact that such attacks are classified as hate crimes across the European region. Nearly half of those who did not report—48 percent—said they simply did not bother because the harassment happened too often. It had become normalized, expected, not worth the effort of formal complaint.
Uge Sangil, president of FELGTB, framed the silence as a policy failure. She called for stronger state-level legislation across Europe to protect LGBTQ rights and emphasized that hate crimes committed through social media must be reported and treated seriously, as they are acts of violence rooted in prejudice. She also noted that the pandemic had made social media even more central to how people in the community connect and socialize—which meant that allowing this violence to persist unchecked was forcing LGBTQ people out of spaces they increasingly needed.
The organization pointed to an initiative called Safetobe as a step toward addressing the gap: a resource designed to help people identify what constitutes a hate crime online and understand their options. But the real problem was structural. The survey revealed not just that LGBTQ Europeans were being targeted at scale, but that the systems meant to protect them were failing almost entirely. The violence was happening. The reporting was not. And the distance between those two facts was where the real harm lived.
Citas Notables
LGBTQ-phobia remains a problem in Europe, and during the pandemic, social media became even more important for community connection—we cannot allow LGBTQ people to keep experiencing this violence or to withdraw from these spaces because of it.— Uge Sangil, president of FELGTB
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why do you think the reporting rate is so low? Five percent seems almost impossibly small.
The survey itself gives us the answer—48 percent of people said they didn't report because it happens too often. When harassment becomes routine, it stops feeling like an incident worth documenting. It becomes background noise.
But these are classified as hate crimes. Shouldn't that change how people perceive them?
In theory, yes. But classification doesn't matter if people don't believe reporting will change anything. If you've been insulted a hundred times and threatened a dozen times, filing a police report about one instance can feel pointless.
The psychological toll is significant—anxiety, fear, sadness. Did the survey explore whether people connected that harm to their decision not to report?
Not explicitly in what was published. But you can see it in the behavior: thirty percent reduced their social media use. They were protecting themselves by withdrawing rather than by seeking help from authorities.
Sangil mentioned the pandemic made social media more important for LGBTQ people. That's a cruel timing.
Exactly. The spaces where people most needed to be present became the spaces where they were most unsafe. So some chose isolation instead.
What would actually change the reporting rate?
Probably two things working together: people would need to believe that reporting leads to consequences, and they'd need to see that belief reflected in their communities. Right now, neither exists at scale.