Evanston-based LGBTQ+ business owner and executive coach Skip Sams posted an Aug. 10-15, 2026, Gay Men of Integrity Leadership Summit virtual event on his Gay Pride Music Page. He paid $10 on Aug. 5 for this to be ad boosted for one day as a test to see if this would help with engagement numbers. Sams original post was done on July 28.
Instead of garnering positive comments, the post was filled with around 700 anti-LGBTQ+ statements, some of which were graphic. This number is as of the date of publication.
“When I boosted the post, I expected it to reach the page’s own 8,000 followers first, and if it went further, to reach people who share similar demographics and interests to that audience,” said Sams. “What I did not anticipate was paying a platform to distribute an LGBTQ+ leadership event to an audience that would generate more hostile and, in some cases, extraordinarily graphic responses instead of positive one— and then having those responses counted as the ‘engagement’ I was paying for.”
Among the anti-LGBTQ+ comments Windy City Times saw were—“I wasn’t aware that gay men had integrity. Kind of an oxymoron.” “The words gay men and integrity have never factually collided in the same sentence.” “The butt buddies convention.” “Pole smoker central.” “I thought you guys liked it from the back…” “Bend over and create your favorite Backdoor Tunes.” and “Spit or Swallow??”
Other comments said the summit would be a “mental patient gathering” and gay people were “demon possessed.” Some called for violence to be perpetrated on the LGBTQ+ community— “Hope they have it on a sinking ship.” and “CAN YALL TAKE A LONG SWIM IN THE OCEAN LOOKING FOR SHARKS.”
Sams told Windy City Times that, “Some of the comments in the screenshots are too graphic for me to comfortably repeat in an email or social media post. There is a certain irony in that: some of the language Meta allowed to appear as engagement on my paid post is language I would be concerned about reproducing myself for fear that my own post would be flagged.”
Sams is an International Coaching Federation member who has coached for approximately 15 years. His focus is on “LGBTQ+ leaders and especially gay men, around leadership, integrity, confidence, relationships, purpose and what it means to live and lead as the same person in every room.
“My background before and alongside coaching has been in music and the arts. I am a composer, musician and producer, and for a number of years my coaching work focused specifically on musicians and artists in recovery. That history is also part of the reason the original summit post appeared on my Gay Pride Music Facebook page. The page and its audience grew out of work I have been doing in music and the LGBTQ+ community for many years.”
The summit was the first time Sams has produced and hosted this event. With the one-day boosted post, Sams was testing whether paid promotion could expand the summit’s reach beyond his existing followers.
When Sams saw the constant anti-LGBTQ+ comments he went to the billing page to make sure he was only charged $10 and instead found the amount of $250.13 charged to his account. Sams told this publication his history with Meta has always been short boosts capped at $10-20 and believed he did the same thing with this event. He added that Meta’s own AI chatbot agreed his intent matched a one-day test.
Sams only uncertainty is whether Meta changed its form or processed it beyond the one-day charge without him noticing. He said every escalation has led him to another automated system, dashboard or AI chatbot. Sams said the AI chatbot told him not to pay the bill until he spoke to a human which hasn’t happened yet which leaves this dispute unresolved.
Meta offers a business subscription for $149 a month which includes the ability to request a callback from a human support agent.
“So beyond counting hostile comments as engagement, Meta is also turning basic human contact into a commodity,” said Sams. “What also concerns me is what happened with the audience. The campaign objective was ‘get more engagement.’ Meta still hasn’t answered my queries about whether anti-LGBTQ+ ridicule and hostility count as ‘engagement’ and can that engagement actually influence where the company delivers an ad next.”
When Windy City Times reached out to Meta to address Sams queries about them continuing to allow hostile anti-LGBTQ+ comments on their platform and whether they are counted as engagement, his billing issues and why they have refused to provide him with a human to address these things regarding his event post they didn’t respond.
Sams is calling on Meta to do better when it comes to the way it treats organizations like his who offer services to a marginalized community. He wants Meta to stop allowing hateful and bigoted comments against the LGBTQ+ community to flourish on their platforms.
“Receiving all these anti-LGBTQ+ comments has reinforced for me why Gay Men of Integrity needs to exist. Gay Men of Integrity is becoming an ongoing community, a private Facebook group alongside the summit, I’ve built that audience specifically on Facebook. This leaves my options limited if something like this happens again; moving the community elsewhere would mean starting over from scratch on a different platform, but the options are limited. I have also learned the importance of being much more thoughtful about how and where I promote my events.
Sams is hosting another Gay Men of Integrity event in November with details to come.