In the hours following the attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations, the focus of public conversation shifted with remarkable speed. Before many people knew the names of those injured or understood the impact on Berlin’s LGBTIQ+ community, headlines were already highlighting one particular detail: the alleged attacker’s links to Islamist extremism. Social media quickly followed suit, with discussions becoming less about violence against queer people and more about Islam, immigration, and national security.
While an attacker’s ideology is undoubtedly relevant to understanding motive, the speed with which the narrative moved away from the victims raises an uncomfortable question. At what point does reporting on an attacker’s identity stop informing the public and start overshadowing the very hate crime it is supposed to explain? When the defining conversation after an attack on Pride centres on the perpetrator rather than the people they targeted, the victims risk becoming secondary in their own story.
That distinction is also recognised by the University’s professor Al Gillespie, who argues that the significance of a perpetrator’s identity depends entirely on the question being asked. From the perspective of those harmed, he says, it may be “not significant at all,” but when authorities are trying to understand patterns of future threat it can become “very significant as it may tell us something about areas of risk…” He continues “The same concerns can be raised with other trends in right wing and left-wing groups […] when they are linked to a terror attack – and people start trying to tag those who are similar with the same risks.” The problem, he warns, is what often follows: people begin assigning “guilt, or traits, by association” rather than judging individuals on their own merits.
Gender and sexuality studies expert and psychology professor Katrina Roen, of the University, agrees, stating “if we’re wanting to come from a perspective of critiquing what sorts of violence are – at least by some people – seen as desirable or acceptable, then I don’t think we need to know about the identity of the perpetrator.” While continuing “Of course people, especially in the immediate aftermath of such an event, there’s a sense of shock, fear, outrage, confusion, and in that process, people are asking: why? Who? How could one do this? And so, in that context, they want to know the identity. And then we’ll make all sorts of suppositions about what their identity means.”
The Victims Should Remain the Focus
Pride is beyond a parade and celebration, it is a political statement born from decades of discrimination, criminalisation and violence against LGBTIQ+ people. Every Pride march represents visibility in the face of prejudice, making these events symbolic targets for anyone motivated by anti-queer hatred.
That is what makes the Berlin attack significant. It was not simply an act of public violence that happened to occur during a parade. It was allegedly directed at an event celebrating LGBTIQ+ identity and community. The central story, therefore, should be about the continuing reality of anti-queer hate and the fact that queer people are still being targeted simply for gathering in public.
Instead, much of the media coverage and online discourse quickly pivoted towards the attacker’s alleged religious extremism. Political commentators debated immigration policy. Social media filled with arguments about Islam in Europe. Discussions that should have centred on the safety of queer communities instead became another battleground in wider cultural debates. In doing so, the lived experiences of LGBTIQ+ people were gradually pushed into the background.
Roen explains the importance of media narratives as they can “further hate in all sorts of directions. Media Narratives can polarise, can set groups of people apart, and can worsen a sense of animosity. Or media narratives could use this as an opportunity for raising awareness, could use this as an opportunity for celebrating queer diversity, or pointing to the value of pride events. You know, the importance of community spaces where it’s safe to be out.”
And Gillespie notes that extremist groups benefit from public discourse – stating “the risk of copy-cats in today’s world is very high. Anything which gives notoriety to the terrorist or increases the fear upon the victims, or their family needs to be carefully moderated.”
When Identity Fuels Another Form of Prejudice
None of this is to argue that an attacker’s ideological motivation should be concealed. If investigators determine that extremist beliefs influenced the attack, those facts deserve to be reported accurately. Journalism relies on providing complete information, even when it is politically uncomfortable.
The problem arises when those facts become the dominant lens through which the entire event is understood. In practice, many people struggle to distinguish between Islamist extremism and Islam itself. Although they are fundamentally different, headlines and social media rarely leave room for that distinction. An attack committed by someone linked to extremist ideology can quickly become an excuse for broad generalisations about Muslims as a whole.
The result is a predictable surge in Islamophobic rhetoric. Rather than condemning the individual responsible, public anger begins spilling over onto entire communities who share neither the attacker’s beliefs nor their actions. Millions of Muslims reject extremist interpretations of Islam and, in many parts of the world, are themselves victims of extremist violence. Yet following attacks like Berlin’s, they often find themselves collectively associated with crimes they had no part in. Ironically, an act rooted in hatred can end up fuelling another form of prejudice altogether.
Gillespie notes Islamist extremism could – and can – becomes become broader political debates about immigration, religion, and national security because “often people are recent arrivals to a community, and this is one of the easiest ways to divide people into ‘them and us.’ Further, immigration and religion have, for centuries gone, been some of the easiest ways to divide communities.”
However, when asked ‘How can governments and the media acknowledge an attacker’s ideological motivations without contributing to broader prejudice against religious or ethnic communities?’ Gillespie argues “not all terrorists are identified by these factors. But the desire to categorise them into groups is common. It is getting harder as often the reason why people turn to terror are not as clear as in the past – or – people do what is known as ‘pick and mix’ where they skip between ideologies to justify their violence.”
The Bigger Picture of Anti-Queer Violence
Perhaps the greatest consequence of focusing so heavily on the attacker’s identity is that it obscures the broader pattern of violence facing LGBTIQ+ communities. Anti-queer hate does not belong to one religion, one ethnicity or one political ideology. Queer people continue to experience abuse, harassment and violence from far-right extremists, religious fundamentalists of various faiths, family members, intimate partners and individuals with no organised ideology at all.
When media coverage singles out one perpetrator’s background above everything else, it risks suggesting that anti-LGBTIQ+ violence is somehow unique to that identity. In reality, the common denominator is not religion or nationality – it is homophobia and transphobia. Reducing the discussion to the attacker’s background ignores the much larger issue: queer people continue to face violence because prejudice against them remains deeply embedded in societies across the world.
The Berlin attack should have prompted a broader conversation about why Pride events increasingly require heavy security, why hate crimes against LGBTIQ+ people remain persistent, and what governments can do to better protect vulnerable communities. Those conversations are far more important than endless debates about whether one perpetrator reflects an entire faith community.
Roen believes “when the focus gets to be on this person’s [religion], cultural group, migration status, criminal justice status […], what is obscured is the widespread homophobic sentiment within the population generally. So, that average [person] who carries a certain level of homophobic sentiment can sit back and feel complacent and think ‘I’m okay, I’m not as bad as those terrible terrorists.’ Instead, we could use this differently, it could be presented in a way that prompt the average homophobic [person] to think ‘gosh, the ideas I harbour are actually quite dangerous, and I’m actually supporting this by being complicit and by being silent.’”
Gillespie agrees, stating “the victims should always be at the forefront…” but, when asked ‘Do you think focusing heavily on a perpetrator’s identity risks obscuring larger patterns of anti-LGBTIQ+ violence and hate crimes?’ He continues “in some ways, you run into the same problem – should the identify/unique characteristic of the victims be made public.”
Extremists Thrive on Division
There is another danger in allowing the attacker’s identity to dominate the narrative: it inadvertently serves the objectives of extremist violence. Terrorism is rarely intended only to harm those immediately affected. Its broader purpose is to create fear, polarise communities, and encourage mutual suspicion between different groups.
When an attack on queer people becomes a catalyst for anti-Muslim sentiment, society is playing directly into that strategy. LGBTIQ+ communities become more fearful, Muslim communities become more stigmatised, and both groups find themselves experiencing increased hostility. Instead of building solidarity between communities that have each experienced discrimination in different ways, public discourse drives them further apart.
This false choice is entirely unnecessary. It is possible to condemn Islamist extremism without condemning Muslims. It is equally possible to acknowledge the attacker’s alleged ideological motivation while refusing to let that become the defining story. These positions are not contradictory; they are essential to responding to acts of hatred responsibly.
And, when framing an attack through the perpetrator’s identity, it can influence how society understand the prevalence and causes of anti-LGBTIQ+ hate. Roen states “There’s a general failure at present – at least in Western countries – to acknowledge the widespread prevalence of homophobia, transphobia, etc. There’s a non-understanding that that phobia still exists, and every time there’s an attack like this, it gets framed in terms of some particular political extremism. It just allows people to continue to be complacent, it allows them to continue not noticing the extent in which queerphobia is widespread and it allows people to continue with a belief that ‘oh we’re not homophobic anymore. Our society, our culture is not homophobic, it’s those people that are homophobic.’
She continues, “That’s the risk, it produces an othering – ‘that culture over there’ or ‘that religion over there, that’s homophobic.’ That othering is harmful to that culture or religion, as well as being harmful to the sense of ‘us’, rather than looking at us and saying, ‘oh we actually are homophobic, we need to deal with that.’ That queerphobia within our cultural context gets obscured, made invisible, and not even acknowledged.”
Don’t Let the Perpetrator Rewrite the Story
One final note from Gillespie is “the public should be able to access as much information as possible about attacks.” Even in regards to extreme terrorism. However,
modern news cycles often reward the most politically divisive angle of a story. Identity is easily turned into a headline because it generates clicks, outrage, and endless debate. The quieter story – the reality that LGBTIQ+ people continue to be targeted for who they are – receives far less sustained attention.
The Berlin Pride attack should ultimately be remembered as an attack on a community celebrating its right to exist openly and safely. Reporting the suspect’s alleged links to Islamist extremism is an important part of understanding the event, but it should never eclipse the reason the attack happened in the first place. When conversations become consumed by the perpetrator’s identity rather than the prejudice that motivated the violence, society risks forgetting those who were actually targeted. And, as Roen put it, “I think what’s really significant here is this is an example of violence against the rainbow community.
If the legacy of Berlin becomes another chapter in Europe’s debates about Islam instead of a renewed commitment to confronting anti-LGBTIQ+ hate, then the public conversation has missed the point entirely. The victims deserved more than to become a footnote in a debate about someone else’s identity. They deserved to remain at the centre of the story – and that is exactly where they should stay.
