Roger-Luc Chayer (Image : AI / Gay Globe)
Stop Homophobie and the accusation of trans genocide in the United States
On January 8, 2026, the Instagram account of the organization Stop Homophobie published the following message: “Experts alert: first stages of a genocide against trans people in the United States.” This text was accompanied by an image of the White House partially hidden by a trans flag, as well as the following title: “United States: alert on a ‘possible genocide of trans people’.”
This publication by Stop Homophobie only received two reactions in ten hours, and for good reason, the extreme survivor victimization rhetoric promoted by this association amounts to pure invention and pure misinformation.
Who is Stop Homophobie?
According to ChatGPT, Stop Homophobie is a French non-profit organization, recognized as being of public interest, founded in 2013 and based in Paris (106 rue de Lourmel, 75015). Its main mission is to fight against discrimination and violence directed against people because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, or health status (notably HIV status); it also works for the defense of LGBTQI+ rights and the awareness of the media and the public on these issues.
The association offers legal, social, and psychological support to victims of LGBTphobia, operates a 24/7 listening hotline, and regularly initiates legal actions against perpetrators of homophobic remarks, transphobic violence, or discrimination. It also conducts awareness campaigns, works in schools and workplaces, and produces committed media content aimed at informing and educating.
What is survivor victimization rhetoric?
Still according to ChatGPT and several authors, survivor victimization rhetoric designates a discursive strategy that consists of presenting oneself, individually or collectively, as a permanent, absolute victim who is threatened with annihilation, beyond objectively established facts. It relies on exaggeration, extreme dramatization, or abusive generalization of real situations to produce a moral urgency, fear, or indignation, and to make any contradiction illegitimate or suspicious.
This rhetoric blurs the lines between proven discrimination, social conflicts, political disagreements, and real violence, placing them all on the same catastrophic level. It uses a heavily charged vocabulary, borrowed from extreme historical contexts such as genocide, systemic persecution, or extermination, without the corresponding legal, historical, or factual criteria being met. The narrative thus constructed aims less to describe reality than to produce an emotional shock and lock the public debate.
Survivor victimization also allows one to settle into an untouchable moral position. Someone who claims to be threatened in their very existence places themselves beyond criticism, as any questioning can be seen as an additional violence or a denial of suffering. It thus tends to pre-emptively disqualify objections, nuances, and rational analysis, portraying them as complicity with the oppressor.
Finally, this rhetoric can have counterproductive effects. By diluting the notion of extreme violence and using it inflationarily, it weakens understanding of real persecutions, fuels public mistrust, and trivializes serious historical concepts. It does not deny the existence of real discrimination but offers a ideological staging rather than a rigorous analysis of facts.
What is genocide under international law?
Genocide is an international crime legally defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the UN in 1948. It refers to acts committed with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a human group identified on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion. This intent to destroy is the central and indispensable element that distinguishes genocide from other forms of mass violence, discrimination, or even crimes against humanity.
Genocide is not limited to a hostile climate, hate speech, or setbacks in rights, however serious. It implies an organized, systematic, and deliberate will to annihilate, carried out through policies, institutions, or coordinated actions aimed at the physical or biological disappearance of group members. Historically and legally, the term refers to extreme realities where the very survival of a group is directly threatened by concrete acts of destruction.
Using the word genocide outside this precise framework dilutes its meaning, trivializes the horror, and erases the unique gravity of the crimes it designates. This does not deny the existence of targeted violence or persecutions, but reminds us that genocide is an exceptional legal qualification, based on strict and demonstrable criteria.
What is Stop Homophobie’s fault?
By using the word “genocide”, Stop Homophobie places the trans issue on the same level as the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, the Armenian genocide, and that of the Jews by the Nazis, and in doing so, the claim is completely false.
No one is being hanged, executed, or shot in the United States simply for being a trans person. We all know that LGBT people in this country, since the rise of Donald Trump, face many setbacks in social rights and major political difficulties, but to talk about genocide, without knowing for what purpose such dramatic claims are made to the public opinion, places Stop Homophobie in a serious situation, amounting to defamation, and does not honor our communities.