Gay students extorted with threat of being ‘outed’ in home countries, Victorian hate crime inquiry hears

<p>“We’re hearing those types of stories quite frequently,” she told the hearing.</p>

<p>“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.”</p>

<p>Tuke said while each case was different there were recurring patterns. Victims were typically instructed to meet in a public place before being subjected to physical violence, filmed, and in many cases, extorted.</p>

<p>She also told the inquiry that most cases of app-based violence were occurring in Melbourne’s outer northern and south-eastern suburbs, although there had also been a “cluster” in Fitzroy.</p>

<h2>Footage shared in the ‘manosphere’</h2>

<p>At just one recent community forum convened by Thorne Harbour, Hughes said 12 men disclosed being attacked after arranging meetings through dating apps.</p>

<p>Only two reported them to police, “and one of them regretted that”.</p>

<p>“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,” Hughes told the inquiry.</p>

<p>“Some offenders are as young as 13. These victims were not chosen at random. They were specifically targeted because they were perceived to be gay or bisexual. These are hate crimes.”</p>

<p>Another witness, David Brown, told the inquiry that he had been speaking with a person a dating app “on and off” for about a month before agreeing to meet “in broad daylight” in August 2024. When he arrived, he was set upon by two teenagers.</p>

<p>“This isn’t something that happened to me in a place that’s dark and secluded,” he said. “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.”</p>

<p>Brown said while he “can’t fault” the police handling of his case, he didn’t see “any justice” because one of the teens was found guilty without recording a conviction, while the other wasn’t charged.</p>

<p>He said they were only arrested after three seperate attacks “on the same street in broad daylight once again”.</p>

<p>In the past year, Guardian Australia has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/19/australia-gay-men-hate-attacks-grindr-comment-ntwnfb" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported on attacks targeting men through dating apps</a> across the country, with Victoria police confirming that anti-LGBTQ+ influencers had been promoting “methods of attack” online. The role of “far-right manosphere influencers” forms part of the inquiry’s terms of reference.</p>

<p>Heather Corkhill, legal director at Equality Australia, told the inquiry that similar attacks in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Staes.</p>

<p>“I’ve even spoken to someone in Lebanon who described exactly the same type of attack occurring there,” she said.</p>

<p>Corkhill told the inquiry that dating apps had allowed offenders to identify and reach potential victims with unprecedented ease.</p>

<p>Equality Australia pointed to data from New South Wales, where a dedicated hate crime unit recorded 197 incidents of LGBTQA+ hate-related violence between January 2023 and October 2025. About 64% of those offences were committed by young people.</p>

<p>Dr Josh Roose, an expert in extremism from Deakin university, told the inquiry some of the NSW attacks could be described as “Islamic State-inspired”. He said Australia “should not wait for mass casualty attack” before it takes such hate crime seriously.</p>

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Guardian Sport · Jun 24

Guardian Sport · Jun 24

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