As our world becomes more and more digital, we believe it is incredibly important to acknowledge Internet Safety Day. The Internet can be a space of great joy and community, particularly for those with a lack of immediate support in their vicinity. However, there is also a darker side — a side where negativity and hate speech can thrive.

The Trevor Project is here to underscore and uplift the safe spaces, and provide support and guidance on navigating the negative.

Trevor’s own Social Media Manager, Leah Juliette (they/them), wrote a heartfelt blog about internet safety and how it intersects with their job. Leah gives us an honest look at being online as an LGBTQ+ person.

This message is a reminder that the hate speech we see online isn't “just words.” It is gasoline on fires that fuel violence, and LGBTQ+ young people, especially trans girls and women, and folks of color, are popular targets. These communities are disproportionately exposed to online harassment, doxxing, and digital abuse, all of which contribute to increased feelings of isolation, fear, and shame — all known risk factors for suicide.

In addition to our blog, we’ve put together another great resource for LGBTQ+ youth and the supportive adults in their lives. Our online safety guide is a great starting point for any conversation on how we exist online. We hope you will read and share with any young people who need it. Your action today can help keep us all safer.

This Internet Safety Day, we can choose to stop treating online harm as an inevitability of innovation and, instead, take responsibility for the communities we make and participate in on social media. Safety isn’t just something Trevor offers in moments of crisis. It’s something we work to forge every day, post by post, so we can help people feel less alone before they ever reach crisis. We hope our guide is helpful to you, or to anyone in your life you think could benefit from it.

Support from individuals like you enables The Trevor Project to continue our work to end LGBTQ+ youth suicide through our crisis services as well as the development of resources and guides like these to promote education and allyship.