Being a queer politician online: visibility and harassment of German members of parliament

The political public sphere is deeply gendered, privileging masculine norms as well as heteronormative behavior. In this context, it is unsurprising that previous research on online harassment of politicians shows that it is more common for minoritized groups, as well as being qualitatively different. Overall, female politicians are at risk of experiencing more personal and sexualized comments. Substantially less is known about sexual minorities in politics. Research from other fields, however, strongly suggests that being openly queer places people at high risk of online harassment. A recent study by Stephenson et al. (2025) of Australian politicians outlines how their experiences depend on degree and content of visibility. For LGBTQI* politicians, visibility is “risky”: the more they speak out for queer rights, the more they become targets of online violence. Our research extends this observation by asking: (1) do forms of violence against queer politicians differ from non-queer politicians? And (2) what are the main boundaries of “acceptable” ways of being queer online? We argue that presenting sexuality as a private issue and conforming to heteronormative lifestyles allows even conservative politicians to be open about their sexuality while avoiding much of the online backlash aimed at those that do not conform and/or actively campaign for queer rights. Our study looks at the online profiles of members of the German Bundestag who at the time of the study openly identified as LGBTQI*, as well as a non-queer sample matched by party and gender. Using qualitative content analysis, we compare comments on social media across platforms (TikTok, Facebook, Instagram) with a particular focus on the intersections of sexuality, gender and visibility, and reflect on their relevance for democratic processes more broadly.