Trans influencer who urged her followers to hunt and out gay men says she was trying to ‘humanise’ homosexuality
Naofal Moussa’s Instagram Live video where she instructed her followers to make fake accounts on gay dating apps. (Screenshot/Supplied)
The trans influencer Naoufal Moussa from Morocco, who encouraged her followers to out gay men, has claimed she was trying to “humanise” homosexuality.
Moussa came under fire last month when she encouraged her hundreds of thousands of followers to track down gay men through dating apps and publicly out them.
Any form of same-sex intimacy – including kissing – is illegal in Morocco and is punishable by up to three years in prison.
Her actions led to gay men being outed online and some reported being thrown out of their homes by homophobic families – but Moussa has now tried to defend her actions.
The influencer claimed in an interview with Reuters that she did not intend for gay men to be outed.
“My intention was to ‘humanise’, ‘un-demonise’ and ‘normalise’ gay people in Morocco so we stop thinking of them as outcasts,” she said.
“I literally wanted people to think of gay people as the man or woman next door and to stop the negative fantasy about who gay people are, how they look like and how they live.”
Naoufal Moussa urged her followers to download gay dating apps and track down closeted men.
But this does not line up with the views expressed by Moussa in her original Instagram Live broadcast where she urged people to out gay men.
In now-deleted Instagram Live videos seen by PinkNews, and translated by queer activists in Morocco, Moussa – who is mainly known as a beauty influencer – said: “I feel bad for those faggots but I don’t care.”
She urged her female followers to “go on the app store” and “type in the word ‘gay'”.
My intention was to ‘humanise’, ‘un-demonise’ and ‘normalise’ gay people in Morocco so we stop thinking of them as outcasts.
“These gay apps will show you all the people who are near you. But you girls should create fake profiles and choose that you’re bottoms,” she continued. “Which means you want someone to f**k you.”
Telling her followers that the three “famous” gay dating apps are Grindr, Planet Romeo and Hornet, she added: “Listen girls and women that think they have manly gay husbands and sons…. these apps will show you the ‘gay’ people who are near you.
“100 metres, 200 metres or even one metre. Just near you in the living room since everyone is home now.
The local LGBT+ community has been living in fear ever since.
“It could even show you your husband, your son. It could show you your neighbour from next door. It could show you your cousin, your uncle.
“Everyone.”
In a later Instagram Live, Moussa held up her phone and showed screenshots her followers had taken of gay men’s dating app profiles.
Many gay men were subsequently sent threatening and violent messages. A number of men from Morocco told PinkNews last month that they knew at least one person who had died by suicide as a result of her broadcast.
Her Instagram account was later removed due to the incident.
