Digital Phantasmagoria of the Monster & the Innocent Child: Online Discourse of Child Harm Allegations Against Queer People Within Twitter’s Anti-Gender Fachosphere

The study utilized a digital ethnographic approach that researched the English-speaking anti-gender Twitter community and its discourse of allegations that queer people harm children. The discourse has ballooned in the past years with the backing of major political leaders, leading to many anti-LGBTQ+ policies. The purpose of the research was to contextualize Judith Butler’s (2024) newest theory of the “phantasmatic field” to the online space in order to provide clear examples of the discourse and how the discussion changes in the online space. The study also researched how social media infrastructure, specifically Twitter rage bait and the recommendation algorithm, influences behavior and expression. The fieldwork consisted of 20 days during which 170 tweets were collected and coded. The study found that queer people are regularly portrayed as monstrous figures, whereas children are portrayed as mangled victims of the monsters, convincing users to believe the allegations of harm. This leads to an intensification of violent emotions and symbolic denial of queerness from all aspects of life by the users. Moreover, rage bait seems to be the most popular tactic among prominent accounts and the Twitter infrastructure seems to be heavily influencing the community and discourse, specifically in spreading anti-democratic sentiments. The study brings awareness to the topic and recommendations on how to better approach the online space and the discourse.