Free Speech or Free to Hate?: Anti-LGBTQ plus Discourses in LGBTQ plus -Affirming Spaces on Gab Social

This article presents a critical discourse analysis of groups on the free speech social media platform Gab that were intended to be LGBTQ+-friendly but became spaces of queerphobia. Results indicate that Gab users deployed discourses of difference to situate the platform as heteronormative and to denigrate the LGBTQ+ community. In particular, discourses utilized in the name of free speech were used to establish LGBTQ+ individuals as abominations, undergird hegemonic masculinity, and marginalize queer folk by reducing them to sex acts and sex organs. This study provides a better understanding of the (in)efficacy of "free speech" as a content moderation policy and unpacks how anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech spreads in digital spaces.