A year after Elon Musk bought Twitter, LGBTQ people say it has become toxic

A year after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk finalized his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, some LGBTQ people say the once-hospitable home for community building has turned toxic.

A year after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk finalized his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, some LGBTQ people say the once-hospitable home for community building has turned toxic.

Monica Rose, who lives in Toronto, joined Twitter in 2008, just two years after the social media website debuted, and she said that at that time, it was like a “cute little group of friends.” 

Rose, a transgender woman, said that most of her Twitter community was also trans and that she interacted with prominent trans activists and followed news about the surge in state legislation targeting transgender people. 

But Rose’s feelings about the platform quickly soured, she said, after Musk took it over in October 2022; he later renamed it X.

The changes and statements affecting LGBTQ people have come in waves.