part 1; edited 1

Homophobia and online harassment are two significant challenges in today's digital age. Homophobia, the irrational fear or hatred towards LGBTQ+ individuals, has a profound impact on mental health, leading to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Despite progress in Canada, there is still widespread discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ individuals globally, with some countries even criminalizing homosexuality. Intersectionality, facing multiple barriers at once, further complicates the issue. Online harassment, facilitated by anonymity and social media platforms, affects people from all walks of life, particularly the LGBTQ+ community. Cyberbullying, doxing, and hate speech are common forms. The rise of social media has made it easier to spread harmful content, resulting in detrimental effects on mental health. The podcast will feature a discussion with Maddy Pepperill, a popular bisexual content creator, to explore the intersection of online harassment and homophobia. Welcome to Navigating Homophobia and Online Harassment, A Call for Change, where we tackle important societal issues and explore pathways to positive change. I'm your host, Abbey Hill, and today we're delving into two present challenges of our digital age, homophobia and online harassment. Let's first examine homophobia, a deeply rooted issue that's been affecting LGBTQ plus individuals worldwide. Homophobia is an irrational fear or hatred towards those who identify as LGBTQ plus, and from subtle microaggressions to blatant discrimination, its impact is profound. So how exactly does homophobia impact the mental health of those experiencing it? Oftentimes homophobia leads to significant mental challenges like anxiety, depression, and even thoughts of suicide in some cases. Ultimately, the hostile environment created by such attitudes hinders individuals from living their lives authentically. Now homophobia manifests in society in a variety of ways, which is really so hard for me to wrap my head around considering that it's 2023, and people have been facing these issues for years, and it's been publicly debated and protested for so long. For example, right now in 2023, there's still verbal slurs and abuse going around towards LGBTQ plus individuals, along with discrimination like violence, sexual assault, legal discrimination, and so many more things. It is true in Canada that the culture has shifted to be more accepting and understanding of LGBTQ plus individuals and their needs, but in other parts of the world it is still very apparent that there is a lot of homophobia. Homosexual behavior remains illegal, or at best, highly regulated in many countries. For example, people in countries with restrictive morality laws, like Singapore and Saudi Arabia, they all tend to believe that homosexual behavior is morally wrong and threatening to their society. Punishment for being homosexual in these countries is very morbid and disturbing. It includes lashings, imprisonment, and even death in some cases. The sole fact alone of knowing that other people that are in the same community as you face these challenges every day makes it even harder for people in Canada and people across the whole world to come out, and if you're facing intersectionality, that only raises the stakes of coming out. Intersectionality is the concept that someone faces more than one barrier and disadvantages all at once. This could be race, gender, job description, and a variety of other things, like age. And I'll touch more on this concept later on in the podcast with my guest speaker. Now, shifting our focus, let's dive into online harassment, which is a pervasive issue affecting people across all walks of life, and in particularly, a lot of those people affected are, in fact, a part of LGBTQ plus communities. Online harassment itself is shielded by anonymity, which means that people have the option to be anonymous and can be shielded by a screen name or an avatar. It takes various forms, such as cyberbullying, doxing, and hate speech in a lot of cases. So how has the rise of social media contributed to the prevalence of online harassment? Now, in our current age of technology, social media platforms provide a fertile ground for harassment due to the ease of spreading information and lack of face-to-face consequences. And even sometimes, algorithms can amplify harmful content, which is programmed into the social media platforms. And because of this, there's a lot of repercussions on people's mental health. To give a more in-depth look on how social media and online harassment coincide with each other, as well as ties in homophobia within that, I'm going to bring in my guest speaker, Maddy Pepperill. Maddy is a great example of intersectionality due to her age, gender, sexuality, and job description. Just a brief background on Maddy, she is a popular bisexual content creator with over 63,000 followers on Instagram, as well as a popular content creator on Playboy. Because of this, she often faces hate due to the nature of her job description, as well as her sexuality. So now that we have some background knowledge about online harassment and homophobia, let's dive into the really enlightening conversation I had with Maddy the other day.