New wave of homophobic attacks targets users of gay dating apps like Grindr – ABC News

Josh is lying on a footpath, curled up into a ball, his head covered with his hands as three men lay into him with metal bars. “Am I going to make it out of here alive?” he remembered thinking. “What’s going to happen?” He managed to get up but stumbled a few times after receiving blows to his head. The men were laughing at him. One of them was filming. “They were calling me a paedophile,” Josh, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, told 7.30. Josh was so badly beaten he almost ended up in intensive care. “Apparently I had lost so much blood that my blood pressure had dropped so low they were considering taking me to ICU.” It was spring 2024 in Melbourne’s bayside suburbs. Josh’s Saturday night had turned into the early hours of Sunday morning. Like many men on the hook-up app Grindr, he’d been “looking”. Grindr is one of the apps being used because users can be relatively anonymous. (Adobe Stock) Josh, now in his 30s, has used Grindr since he was 18. He started chatting to a user whose profile had three face pics, unlike the others, and “filled out” details.
Read More