Egale Canada is a leading advocacy organization whose mission is to save and improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people through research, education, and awareness. Through their work with many different queer groups across the country, they sensed that anti-LGBTQ+ hate had risen dramatically.

The problem? The federal government had stopped tracking anti-LGBTQ+ hate in 2021. Without any national data, the issue wasn’t getting the attention it needed and people believed the safety of Canada’s queer community wasn’t at risk.

In the lead-up to Pride month, Egale Canada wanted to make the issue of anti-LGBTQ+ hate unignorable. The objectives:

- Rally Canadians to stand up against hate

- Urge the Canadian government for support

To spark a much-needed conversation about anti-LGBTQ+ hate, we took the very symbol of Pride itself—a Pride flag—and unravelled it. This created a new symbol for LGBTQ+ Canadians and their allies to rally behind.

The unravelled flag has 6,423 missing threads. That’s one thread for every hate-fuelled anti-LGBTQ+ incident we tracked ourselves, from just the first three months of 2023. We stopped at three months because if we included more, there wouldn’t be any flag left.

To find these incidents, we measured anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in spaces where people gather: at in-person protests and on social media. We started by tracking anti-LGBTQ+ protests in Canada using the ‘Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project’. Then, using social media analytics platform Infegy Atlas, we scrubbed every Canadian social post for hate speech used in conjunction with LGBTQ+ terms.

We measured anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in spaces where people gather: at in-person protests and on social media.

We started by tracking anti-LGBTQ+ protests in Canada using the ‘Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project’. Then, using social media analytics platform Infegy Atlas, we scrubbed 15 social media platforms (including Instagram, X, Reddit, and TikTok) against dozens of hateful terms used in conjunction with LGBTQ+ terms:

• HATEFUL TERMS: ‘groomer’, ‘pedophile’, ‘predator’, ‘death penalty’, ‘die’, ‘faggot’, and more (terms that surged in usage after the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill passed in Florida).

• LGBTQ+ TERMS: 10 terms including ‘drag queen’, ‘trans’, ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, and ‘queer’.

Finally, we removed anything with a positive sentiment. What remained was 6,423 incidents from just the first three months of 2023:

• January 2023 - 1,744 incidents

• February 2023 - 2,127 incidents

• March 2023 - 2,552 incidents

Two months before the start of Toronto Pride, Canada’s largest Pride parade, the campaign was shared online by three LGBTQ+ influencers:

- Al Val (she/her), trans activist and entertainer

- Scarlett Bobo (they/them/she/her), drag queen, TV personality, and Canada’s Drag Race star

- Hollywood Jade (he/him), choreographer and Canada’s Drag Race judge

Then, we ran out-of-home digital screens in 6 major Canadian markets, and a full-page print ad in Canada’s largest daily newspaper. We also ran online video, digital banners, and paid and organic social, before having the unravelled flag appear at in-person events. All assets drove directly to Egale Canada’s website.

On the website, people could download a bank of social media assets and read a report that featured the stories behind the 6,423 hate-fuelled incidents. This report was also sent to members of the press and 35 key government officials.

The government of Canada acknowledged the threat against the LGBTQ+ community and pledged $1.5 million in emergency funding for Pride event security.

The Pride Unravelled campaign received significant coverage, ultimately garnering over 73 million earned impressions from 110 outlets. The 6,423 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents that we uncovered became a national news story – first published by The Canadian Press and syndicated across the country, including top-tier news outlets like CTV News and The Globe and Mail.

The PDF version of the book was viewed over 11,500 times. Campaign assets were downloaded by individuals, labour unions, schools, research centres, and other advocacy organizations who amplified our message in their own social channels.

A post-campaign survey also showed that 6/10 people who recalled the campaign would donate to Egale Canada. Finally, three months after the launch of the campaign, the Canadian government released its first report on anti-LGBTQ+ hate in over two years.