Transgender beauty influencer Sofia Taloni (aka Naofal Moussa) says she never intended to hurt anyone when she encouraged people in Morocco to create fake profiles on gay dating apps to out closeted men in their communities.
Quick backstory: In a video posted to Instagram Live last month, Taloni instructed her 627,000 followers to create phony profiles and identify themselves as “bottoms” to make themselves more appealing to closeted men. After collecting the men’s pics, she told followers to circulate the images on Facebook to try and learn their identities.
In Morocco, homosexuality is punishable with up to three years in prison. LGBTQ people have no legal protections and are often subjected to harassment and physical violence. Within hours of Taloni’s video being posted, gay dating apps in Morocco were flooded with new users. Dozens of men were outed to their families and communities, and at least one committed suicide.
Related: Awful influencer encourages people to make fake Grindr profiles to out gay men
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Now, in an interview with Reuters, Taloni now says she never meant for gay men to be exposed, and she certainly never intended for anyone to take their own life, when she led the vicious outing campaign. Instead, she was simply trying to raise awareness and “humanize” homosexuality in Morocco.
“My intention was to ‘humanize’, ‘un-demonize’ and ‘normalize’ gay people in Morocco so we stop thinking of them as outcasts,” she now says.
“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.”
But this doesn’t line up with what Taloni told The Moroccan Times last month, when she said she didn’t regret her actions because jealous gay people in her home country tried getting her profile deactivated and so they deserved to be outed.
“In all honesty, I did not want to out them, but they started this war,” she said at the time. “The Moroccan gay community shared my profile on many Facebook groups and were encouraging people to report me so that my account gets deactivated.”
She added, “They were outing me, out of jealously, because I am successful on various social media platforms,” before saying “I have no regrets whatsoever.”
Shortly after posting the video, Instagram deactivated Taloni’s account. She has since created another one and already has over 5,000 followers.
Related: Influencer who led campaign to out gay men has “no regrets” even after one victim dies by suicide
curiobi
Alright, I am going to go ahead and say it, what is going on with this individual, are they insane? You out gay men, one commits suicide, you say you have no regrets, get booted off social media, rejoin with a new account and paint yourself as a bastion of gay liberties?
No, just no.
Cam
They’re always sorry when they get backlash.
winemaker
Who is this disgusting piece of vile trash and how dare she out gay men knowing full well the laws in Morocco? Really just another attention whore looking for her 15 minutes of fame. I suggest we ignore this piece of festering SHIT and deal with more important things going on in the world.
Catholicslutbox
He should just go choke on his D-
Jared MacBride
Her help is not needed. I’m already human.
sonic_source
She’s taking a page from the Trump playbook and is trying to convince us we didn’t see what we saw.
S.anderson
LGB and TQNB people share a common enemy, but NOT a common identity, nor vision for the future. If your eyes are open, you can see the problems this leads to.
This woman, Sofia/Naofal hates herself and hates us all even more. Homophobia runs free and unchecked within the TQNB communities. I have experienced this personally. LGB people, just by existing, stand as living contradictions to the TQNB belief system. LGB people have spent decades demonstrating that they are normal people, and not confused about their gender; simply not conforming to traditional sex roles assigned to their gender. TQNB people however, do not challenge these traditional sex/gender roles, instead, they express themselves by embodying, in as much detail as possible, sex roles which they were not assigned at birth. Celebrating your queerness or weirdness is fine too, as long as you don’t overstep and say you speak for all LGBTQNB people and assert that they all embrace the umbrella term “queer” with enthusiasm. Never mind that it’s still a slur to most people.
Transgender, queer and non-binary people want to sweep the old regime away. And they’ve made a startling amount of progress in this, having subsumed LGBTQ organizations from within. Youth these days don’t even know the LGB vocabulary and culture of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. It’s even heretical to identify as bisexual, when the the program offers the genderfluid form of queer identity instead. One can’t just be man or woman who likes both men and women now. Oh no, you gotta agree that you have a mix of genders because supposedly only the male spirit desires women and only the female spirit desires men.
It was hard enough for LGB people to grow up being called “fags”, or worrying all the time about being exposed. It leads to denial, self-hatred and lashing out. Transgender queer and non-binary people also grew up in conflict with societal norms. But, for the most part they identify as straight (though CIS straights may not agree). They hated being called, or feeling like “fags” all their lives too. They don’t come to terms with their homosexuality like LGB people do, because they are straight. They don’t, and never will, identify with their LGB peers. This is why they reject and hate LGB people, and seek to “correct the record” about transgender contributions to Gay Liberation, and replace the terms “lesbian”, “gay” and “bisexual” with “queer” even when discussing figures who died before the term “homosexual” was even invented.
It’s a sad state of affairs, and… there will be backlash.
JayneEyre
I’m sorry, but where did you get this information that you’re stating as fact? Because I’ve worked in one gay bar or another since 1987 and have known a LOT of people under the LGBTQ+ community. And I’ve never seen the motives you ascribe to both of the sections of the LGBTQ+ community (that you have needlessly split).
You say “as long as you don’t overstep and say you speak for all LGBTQNB people “, and then go on to do that very thing. Also, your claim that “This is why they reject and hate LGB people” is utter rot.
UlfRaynor
What a ray of trans sunshine she is.
Hussain-TheCanadian
If she wanted to “humanize” and “un-demonize” gay men by outing them, why is she calling their outing a “war”???
This lying jack@ss needs to have her social media blocked completely, shes a danger for herself and others.
Kangol2
This Sofia Taloni creature has serious psychological issues. She sounds like a narcissistic sociopath. She has put the lives of dozens of extremely vulnerable men who have sex with other men in grave danger, not only from the Moroccan state authorities, but in many cases from their own families. Why did she do this? She claims to “humanize” gay people, yet she essentially lashed out against unnamed individuals whom she claims harmed her. The logic does not compute. You are going to harm dozens of unknown people, outing and destroying their lives, because some jack@sses mistreated you?
Instead of generating Instagram accounts and collecting followers Taloni should be off social media and under intensive psychological care. In addition, gay and LBTQ people do not “humanizing,” and outing them in a context like that of Morocco surely isn’t going to “normalize” them, but if she wanted to show the everyday lives of selected out gay Moroccans, like writer Abdellah Taïa, she could have done so, with their consent and in a very careful, controlled way. Instead, she engaged in behavior that has led to one suicide, destroyed lies, and potentially murder. She has a lot to atone for, and at this point really should just shut up and stay far away from the limelight.
theafricanwiththemouth
Puke in Human form, ugh!!
Chaud002
She should of known that exposing gay men in Morocco would lead to devastating results. The end does not justify the means.
Pii
a waste of sutured skin.
irbaboon
She probably figured she was getting on Allah’s good side by doing this
JayneEyre
Have you ever noticed that those who claim others are mean to them because the others are “jealous” invariably have nothing to be jealous about? This was a calculated, meticulous, evil, and hateful campaign to cause damage to other people, and this idiot should be held legally accountable.