Gay and bisexual male students in Australia who migrated from anti-LGBTQ+ countries are being targeted by men on gay dating apps who then assault and extort them with threats of outing them in their home countries, The Guardian reported today. Similar attacks are occurring in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., one Australian LGBTQ+ advocate said.
Police in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria have identified 95 such attacks since June 2024, resulting in 42 arrests; though the number of actual incidents may be far higher since some victims may not have told police out of shame or fear of the legal system.
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Jenna Tuke, the chief executive of Switchboard Victoria (an LGBTQ+ support services hub), told legal investigators that predators tell their victims to meet in public before physically assaulting, filming, and extorting them.
“We’ve heard a lot of stories of people who’ve been… contacted after the offense and asked to deposit tens of thousands of dollars in an account – ‘otherwise, this video will be shared with everyone in your contacts,’” Tuke told investigators.
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“It does appear that they may be targeting people who they think are not ‘out’, and for whom the kind of consequences of being outed as gay or queer will be greater,” she added. “[The] family implications for those people are absolutely massive.”
Families from anti-LGBTQ+ countries may disown or cut off financial and emotional support from relatives who are outed as queer. Some LGBTQ+ students face threats of police harassment, violence, imprisonment, and even death in countries with anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
Chad Hughes, the chief executive for the Thorne Harbour Health center for LGBTQ+ people, told investigators, “The attacks are deliberate and humiliating. The victims are forced to recite slurs on camera and footage is shared online to give the perpetrators status with their target audiences: others in the manosphere.” He said some of the perpetrators are as young as 13.
One man named David Brown was chatting with a person on a dating app before agreeing to meet somewhere in public on an August 2024 day. When Brown arrived, two teens attacked him: “They turned up to a park with a knife bigger than any of you have in your kitchen and held it to me… It was just pure hatred.”
One of the teens in the case was found guilty, but the other wasn’t charged, Brown said.
Heather Corkhill, legal director of the country’s lead LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Equality Australia, told investigators that similar crimes are taking place in the United Staes, United Kingdom, and Canada.
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