ICYMI: HRC Condemns Threats Against Boston Children's Hospital, Other Pediatricians

HRC's Jay Brown: "This disinformation campaign is coordinated, extremely harmful & threatens LGBTQ+ lives."

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Septe,ber , 2022 - In the wake of escalating, often violent rhetoric against physicians and hospitals providing best-practice, age-appropriate, medically-necessary gender affirming care - including recent violent threats against Boston Children's Hospital - HRC's Senior Vice President of Programs, Research and Training, Jay Brown, spoke with PBS NewsHour about the current moment where violent, extreme-right rhetoric is threatening parents, young people, and medical providers.

"We may not have seen [a provider] harmed yet, but we know they are being threatened," said Jay Brown. "We are also seeing, at the time these threats are increasing, an epidemic of violence against the trans community that continues to increase year after year. There is a direct tie to our very lives… we have research saying that the vast majority of young people are being impacted by this vitriol online."

Boston Children's Hospital is one of several facilities that provide best-practice, age-appropriate medical care to LGBTQ+ young people and offer support to their families and loved ones. After a co-ordinated disinformation campaign conducted by online far-right influencers, doctors and staff at the hospital began to receive harassing and threatening messages, escalating until a recent bomb threat was called in to the facility.

In light of increased disinformation being spread by far-right media figures and inaction on the part of social media giants like Meta and Twitter to moderate their platforms, HRC partnered with the Center for Countering Digital Hate to produce Digital Hate: Social Media's Role in Amplifying Dangerous Lies about LGBTQ+ People, a report spotlighting these recent trends. It reveals that the average number of tweets per day using slurs such as "groomer" and "pedophile" in relation to LGBTQ+ people surged by 406% in the month after Florida passed its "Don't Say Gay or Trans" bill, and shows how the vast majority of hate spread online against LGBTQ+ people originates with just a few bad actors.

Every credible medical organization - representing over 1.3 million doctors in the United States - calls for age-appropriate gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people. Learn more in our gender-affirming care fact sheet, or in our gender-affirming care explainer video. When reporting on issues pertaining to transgender and non-binary people, please consult our brief guide on getting transgender coverage right.

If you are interested in speaking with Jay Brown or another HRC spokesperson on the record, please email press@hrc.org.

The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ+ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.