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If you are being threatened with ‘I’ll tell everyone’, the first thing you need to hear is this: your orientation and your identity are yours. No one has the right to use them as a weapon, especially not someone who claims to love you.
It starts with a message that seems like a joke, or a ‘you’ll see what happens if you leave me’. Then come the audios, the screenshots, the messages at three in the morning. And one day the phrase appears that changes everything: ‘I’m going to tell your family’. Or your boss, your team, your group of friends.
This has a name: it is outing used as blackmail, and it is a form of violence within the couple. I have already talked about what it means to expose someone without their permission in what outing is and what consequences it has, and how control also exists within our relationships in what intragender violence is.
As president of the Rainbow eSafe Association and a computer expert, I tell you this calmly and in order. The most urgent thing is that you do not lose the evidence, because it is the first thing that is lost when one panics.
Why this threat is so effective
It is not designed to hurt you by what it says, but by what is behind it: the fear that other people will decide for you when and how something so intimate is known.
And that fear is not an exaggeration. According to the European survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights on LGTBIQ people (published in 2024), 53% of LGTBIQ people in Spain suffered harassment in the last year, and 27% often or always avoid certain places for fear of being attacked. Those who threaten you know this and play with it.
We also see it in calls to the Rainbow Phone 028 of the Ministry of Equality: according to a note from August 2024, in its first year it received 9,486 inquiries, approximately two out of ten after an episode of violence, and violence between same-gender couples was the second most frequent reason for consultation (12.8%), just behind psychological support (16.8%).
If this is happening to you, you are not a rare or exaggerated case.
First: before reacting, to
In this order, and without intermediate steps:
Do not give in
Every time you give in, the threat works and comes back stronger.
Do not delete anything
Neither messages, nor audios, nor the entire conversation, even if it hurts to see it.
Do not respond in anger
Everything you write can be used to entangle, justify, or manipulate.
The 5 steps, in order
1Secure the evidence, and do not just stay with the screenshot
Here is the most important thing. Right now your WhatsApp conversation is the evidence, but your partner also has access to it. And WhatsApp allows you to delete a message ‘for everyone’ for a limited time. If you do not save it in time, part of what they wrote to you may disappear from your screen.
- Take screenshot of the entire conversation, with date, time, and the number or name visible.
- Also save the audios, images, and videos they have sent you.
- Use the Export chat option in WhatsApp to have a separate copy.
- Note the dates of each threat or episode.
Key fact: certify the evidence. The screenshot is a good first piece of evidence, but it is only the first step. For it to have weight in a complaint or procedure, you must certify the authenticity of the digital evidence: leave a technical record that those messages are real, who sent them, and when. An uncertified screenshot can easily be questioned.
At the Rainbow eSafe Association, we have tools to certify the authenticity of your digital evidence. Write to us before blocking or deleting anything.
2Tell someone, and do not carry it alone
Whoever controls needs you to isolate yourself. Break that piece first.
- A trusted friendship, a family member you know will support you, or a person from your reference LGTBIQ+ association.
- The Rainbow Phone 028 of the Ministry of Equality: offers information, legal advice, and psychosocial care to LGTBI people and their environment. It is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in several languages, and also by email and online chat.
If you find it very difficult to talk, start by writing to someone. You don’t have to tell everything at once.
3Report
Harassment and threats can constitute a crime, and using your sexual orientation as a weapon is even more serious. What matters is not what technical name it has, but that you tell everything as it happened.
- Go to the National Police or the Civil Guard with the evidence and, if you already have it certified, better.
- Tell it explicitly: that it is your partner, that they are threatening to reveal your orientation or identity and that they are doing it via WhatsApp.
- If you don’t know how to approach it, the 028 can guide you before you go, and a legal person can explain what options you have and if there are protective measures to request.
- If there are also intimate images involved, you have the step-by-step in what to do if you are threatened with spreading your intimate photos.
4Block or limit contact, but only when the evidence is safe
Blocking and reporting the account on WhatsApp is a good decision, but after securing the evidence.
It is also advisable to think about your safety: in a controlling relationship, cutting off contact abruptly can provoke a worse reaction. If you live with that person, or think they may show up at your home or work, mention it in the 028 or in the report, and do not make that decision alone.
5Close their access to your digital life
Whoever harasses you on WhatsApp often already knows more about you than you think: your location, your passwords, your cloud accounts.
- Change your passwords and enable two-step verification.
- Check who you share your location with and what devices have your accounts open.
- See if your partner has access to your mobile, your code, or your account.
- In protecting your iPhone so they can’t spy on you you have the specific steps for iPhone, and in how they can spy on you through Grindr or TheBlowers the steps for dating apps.
The counterargument that must be acknowledged
Some people think: ‘If I tell it first, they won’t have anything to threaten me with.’ And it is true that sometimes, getting ahead takes power away from the threat.
But coming out is your decision, at your pace and on your terms, not an obligation to dodge blackmail. Saying it because someone else is imposing it on you is not the same as telling it when you are ready. And if you decide to do it, better with support and with the evidence already secured, not out of fear.
What you take away
First. Do not give in, do not delete, do not respond in anger.
Secure and certify. Screenshots, chat export, and certification of evidence.
Do not carry it alone. A trusted person and the 028.
Report. With the evidence and explaining that it is your partner.
Close access. Passwords, location, and devices.
If you need us to accompany you, at the Rainbow eSafe Association we are here to help you, without judging you and with the confidentiality that this deserves. Write to us at rainbowesafe.com/contacto.
