Anti-Transgender Tweets: Tampa Ranks 3rd

TAMPA, FL — Florida doesn’t rank high overall as a state in regard to prejudice against minorities, but several of its largest metro areas lead the nation in the number of anti-transgender tweets.

That’s according to the website Abodo, which compiled a study to analyze tweets in trying to discern areas of the country where prejudice is most prevalent. They studied pejorative terms related to such minorities as blacks and Hispanics, women, gays and lesbians, transgender people, the disabled and even those who are overweight.

As a baseline, the site geolocated 154 keywords among 12 million tweets in scouring for slurs and other prejudiced language.

In terms of overall derogatory language by state, Florida didn’t earn dubious Top 10 ranking. The worst state in the nation, according to the analysis, was Louisiana. It was followed closely by Nevada and Texas. The least derogatory states in the country included Wyoming, Montana and Vermont.

While tweets originating from the Sunshine State didn’t trip the meter in the overall derogatory category, they did raise red flags in regard to anti-transgender language. Las Vegas topped the ranking for the most slurs against transgender people per 100,000 tweets at 99. Orlando came in second at 80 tweets and Tampa third with 30. Miami and Atlanta rounded out the top five with 24 and 20, respectively.

Tampa didn’t register in the Top 10 lists in other categories, such as anti-Hispanic or anti-black language, but other Florida cities did. Miami ranked ninth for having anti-Hispanic tweets, and Orlando and Miami ranked sixth and seventh in the number of derogatory tweets about women, Adobo found.

To check out the full survey, visit Adobo online.

Patch editor Tony Cantu contributed to this report.

Image via Shutterstock

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