Hate and harassment towards women spreads after Trump’s election

Over a 24-hour period following Trump’s election, there was a 4,600% increase in the usage of the phrase “your body, my choice” on X. The phrase has made its way offline as well, with young girls and parents across the country using social media to share instances of harassment involving it.

In the nine days since Donald Trump was elected president for a second time, the denigration and harassment of women online has increased dramatically. 

One refrain in particular has gained significant steam: “your body, my choice.” Over a 24-hour period following Trump’s election, there was a 4,600% increase in the usage of that phrase on X, according to a study conducted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). 

“Your body, my choice” is an apparent subversion of the phrase “my body, my choice,” which reproductive rights advocates use as a rallying cry. 

On Facebook, the phrase appeared in 52,000 posts over a 24-hour period. And on TikTok, female users reported that accounts commented “your body, my choice” en masse on their posts, also according to the ISD study. 

“I had to delete a video because I was being threatened and several men commenting [sic] saying they couldn’t wait until I get raped or ‘your body my choice,’” one study respondent stated. 

The phrase has made its way offline as well. According to the ISD study, young girls and parents across the country have “used social media to share instances of offline harassment” involving it. 

“They include the phrase being directed at them within schools or chanted by young boys in classes,” the report states. 

In one school district in Wisconsin, the phrase has picked up such steam that Cory Hirsbrunner, the superintendent of Stevens Point School District, sent an email to parents on Monday.

“In the days after the election, we have received reports of some students using the phrase, ‘Your body, my choice,’ often directed at female students,” Hirsbrunner wrote in the email obtained by CNN. “It is simply unacceptable for students to use any language that is threatening in nature. Any students found to have violated school district policy will be subject to disciplinary action.”

Women on Reddit are using the platform to warn each other of offline harassment, according to the ISD study. One user stated: “Women were being harassed today at UNM [University of New Mexico] and told to ‘go home where they belong’ by gangs of men in MAGA gear.”

The phrase “your body, my choice” seems to have at least partially originated with white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes, whose Nov. 5 X post stating “Your body, my choice. Forever.” has so far received 90 million views. Fuentes’ house was doxxed in response, and police responded to a call about a woman who showed up at his Illinois home earlier this week.

Another far-right influencer, Andrew Tate, has perpetuated the phrase as well. In an X post on Nov. 7, he stated: “I saw a woman crossing the road today but I just kept my foot down. Right of way? You no longer have rights.” The post received 688,000 views in under two hours, also according to the ISD study. It has since been deleted.

Posts calling for the repeal of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote, have also surged in the last week – by 663%. 

Researchers Isabelle Frances-Wright and Moustafa Ayad write that the spread of these phrases and calls for the rollback of women’s rights “demonstrate the influence of an increasingly vindicative set of online actors, who appear to be using the election results as a permission structure to more overtly and aggressively espouse narratives about curbing women’s rights.”