Racialized migrant women and 2SLGBTQI+ (Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex+)Â people and others perceived as such have successfully used digital spaces to share their experiences, challenge violence, facilitate transnational activism, foster community, exchange resources and build collective resilience. It has also been a critical tool in challenging hegemony and erasure of their lives by directly engaging with and sharing their viewpoints with different audiences.
However, amid rising anti-migrant sentiment and rhetoric in Canada, digital spaces have become critical sites where gendered, homophobic, transphobic, racist and xenophobic narratives are being amplified. This has had deeply harmful impacts on racialized migrant women and 2SLGBTQI+ people.
Between May 2024 and September 2025, Amnesty International undertook interviews and in-depth social media analysis to understand the forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TfGBV)10 faced by women and 2SLGBTQI+ activists and journalists from Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities in Canada. Twenty five scoping interviews were conducted between May 2024 and August 2024 with Indigenous, Black, and other racialized women and 2SLGBTQI+ activists/advocates, human rights defenders, journalists, as well as with spokespersons or representatives of organizations that serve these communities. Six of these scoping interviews were used to inform final findings of this research,11 based on written consent from the participants obtained in July 2025. Amnesty International conducted 22 additional interviews between July and September 2025.
In total, this research is informed by 28 interviews with people from the provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Alberta.
Read “The Hate is Intersectional: Xenophobic TfGBV Against Racialized Women and 2SLGBTQI+ People in Canada.”