Mapping General Discrimination and LGBT Discourse

The fourth in our series of geographic visualizations explores the geography of LGBT-related discussion (blue) and discrimination (orange) over the past hour, with an animation of all discrimination-related coverage over the last 24 hours (red).  Here the blue LGBT layer captures all coverage of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender issues, from same-sex marriage to pride parades to sexual orientation to homophobia.  Given that so much discourse around the world today on LBGT issues unfortunately centers on discrimination, we've also included the broader topic of discrimination on this map.  Here, discrimination includes any and all discourse that explicitly utilizes language self-identifying discriminatory activities or narratives, including those relating to race, religion, sexual preference, and immigration/citizenship status.

The red animated layer shows the geography of discrimination-related coverage over the past 24 hours.  You can turn each of the layers on/off using the "Visible layers" dropdown at the top-right of the map.

(Click to View Map in Full Browser Window)
 

At the time of this blog post (3:30PM EST on May 14, 2015), the map exhibits a heavy emphasis over the past 24 hours on claims that some Southeast Asian nations are forcing boats filled with refugees and migrants back into open waters, especially those filled with Bangladeshis and Rohingya, while South African coverage discuses allegations of xenophobic mass arrests of immigrants and a school segregation case, Uruguay coverage discusses racial tensions in sports, Pakistani coverage discusses attacks on religious minorities, Ugandan coverage discusses the deteriorating climate towards LBGT individuals, and Iraqi coverage discusses ISIS attacks on Christians.