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LGBTQ Icelanders face ‘dehumanising’ new form of abuse – barking
- Some activists think barking insults, may have been spread among Icelandic users of social media platforms, TikTok in particular, during Covid lockdowns
- Recent incidents involving the unusual form of abuse have raised fears of an upswing in homophobic and transphobic sentiment in Iceland
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It was not the first time that Daniel Arnarsson, a well-known Icelandic LGBTQ rights campaigner, had faced homophobic insults on the streets of the capital, Reykjavik.
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But he had never been barked at before.
“It’s dehumanising in its worst form,” the 32-year-old head of Iceland’s National Queer Association – Samtokin ’78 – said of the incident, which happened when a group of young men made barking noises at him from their car as he walked home.
While Iceland is ranked as one of the world’s most progressive nations in terms of LGBTQ rights, dozens of recent incidents involving the unusual form of abuse have raised fears of an upswing in homophobic and transphobic sentiment in the nation of some 360,000 people.
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Seventeen-year-old student Andreas Tinni Waage said most LGBTQ people he knew had been barked at in the past few months – including himself.
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