You Won’t Believe How Much Rape Threats Increased After Trump’s Win
Far-right trolls, chauvinists, and the people who idolize them have made it abundantly clear in the days since Donald Trump was elected that, in their world, women will not be autonomous and should not feel safe.
Across social media, young men are parroting white supremacist, Hitler fan, and far-right political pundit Nick Fuentes, who wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Your body, my choice. Forever,” hours before the election was even called in Trump’s favor.
That post was viewed more than 90 million times and reposted more than 35,000 times, according to an analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. But between Thursday and Friday, the ISD found that the phrase itself had taken root online, proliferating by a 4,600 percent increase.
Just for reference, that’s exponentially larger than the last major hate-speech wave on X, which saw a ninefold increase in the use of the n-word in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform.
And the violent, misogynistic phrase has seemingly spilled from the digital ecosphere into daily life, as well, with parents reporting that young boys were caught leveraging the violent language against girls in school.
School officials in Minnesota issued a notice to parents on Friday that they were aware of “misogynistic … transphobic, and homophobic memes and messages” directed toward students in nearby school districts, including the phrase “your body, my choice.”
“Our country is facing a period of significant division, and the recent election has stirred a range of emotions. Although Hopkins Public Schools is nonpartisan, we recognize that the outcome of the election has and will continue to spark instances of racism, homophobia, and sexism in school communities across the nation and state, including here in Hopkins,” wrote Dr. Rhoda Mhiripiri-Reed, superintendent of the Hopkins Public Schools system, in a letter that encouraged parents to reach out to local authorities if their children received such messages.
The election results have seemingly created a safe space for misogynists to crawl out of the woodwork. In Texas, activists celebrating Trump’s win overtook Texas State University’s San Marcos Campus, raising signs that read “Women are property” and “Homo sex is sin,” and lists that designated women and slaves as “types of property.”
At best, the comments are unsavory rage bait being regurgitated by people who are unaware of the ramifications or depth of the hyperconservative, misogynistic belief. But they have the double-sided effect of making women—who have had their reproductive rights systematically stripped away from them on a state-by-state basis since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022—feel incredibly unsafe on the precipice of an overwhelmingly far-right administration.