The history of violence against LGBT people in the United States is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals (LGBT), legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. [1] The people who are the targets of such violence are believed to violate heteronormative rules and they are also believed to contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBT may also be targeted for violence. Violence can also occur between couples who are of the same sex, with statistics showing that violence among female same-sex couples is more common than it is among couples of the opposite sex, but male same-sex violence is less common. [2]
Extensive violence has been directed against the LGBT community of the United States for decades. Since the 1969 Stonewall riot against one of the many police raids on gay bars altered the goal of LGBT rights activists from assimilation to acceptance, there have been many more reported and unreported instances of violence against LGBT people in the United States. Every year, dozens of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals are murdered in the US, and the murder of black transgender women is especially prevalent. [3] Attacks against LGBT people generally center on the idea that there is a normal way for people to live, which encompasses all expressions, desires, behaviors, and roles associated with the gender each person was assigned to at birth, known as heteronormativity and cisnormativity. Over time the number of these acts of violence has increased greatly, whether due to the changing religious and political views, increased community visibility, or other factors. There have been political protests intended to bring about harsher penalties for these crimes. [4]
A hate crime is defined as the victimization of individuals because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity or national origin, sexual orientation, religion, gender, gender identity or disability. [5] Hate crimes against LGBTQIA people often occur because the perpetrators are homophobic or transphobic. Acts of violence which are committed against people because of their perceived sexuality can either be psychological or physical and they can include murder. These violent actions may be caused by cultural, religious, or political mores and biases. Victims of violence who are both LGBT and persons of color may have trouble distinguishing whether the violence was based on their sexuality/gender identity or whether racism also played a significant factor. [6] An intersectional approach would examine how these forms of discrimination combine in unique ways.
The United States has passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act (P.L. 101–275), in order to develop a systematic approach for documenting and understanding hate crimes against LGBT people in the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has also implemented a data collection program and integrated the system under their Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).
In 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that 20.8% of hate crimes reported to police in 2013 were founded on sexual orientation. Sixty-one percent of those attacks were against gay men. [7] Additionally, 0.5% of all hate crimes were based on perceived gender identity. In 2004, the FBI reported that 14% of hate crimes due to perceived sexual orientation were against lesbians, 2% against heterosexuals and 1% against bisexuals. [8]
The FBI reported that for 2006, hate crimes against gay people increased from 14% to 16% in 2005, as percentage of total documented hate crimes across the U.S. [9] The 2006 annual report, released on November 19, 2007, also said that hate crimes based on sexual orientation are the third most common type, behind race and religion. [9] In 2008, 17.6% of hate crimes were based on the victim's perceived sexual orientation. Of those crimes, 72.23% were violent in nature. 4,704 crimes were committed due to racial bias and 1,617 were committed due to sexual orientation. Of these, only one murder and one forcible rape were committed due to racial bias, whereas five murders and six rapes were committed based on sexual orientation. [10]
Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney (DDA) Jay Boyarsky attributed a surge in anti-gay hate crimes, from 3 in 2007 to 14 in 2008, to controversy over Proposition 8. However, the DDA cautioned against reading too much from small statistical samples, pointing out that the vast majority of hate incidents do not get referred to the District Attorney's office. [11]
In 2011, the FBI reported 1,572 hate crime victims targeted based on a sexual orientation bias, making up 20.4% of the total hate crimes for that year. Of the total victims. 56.7% were targeted based on anti-male homosexual bias, 29.6% were targeted based on anti-homosexual bias, and 11.1% were targeted based on anti-female homosexual bias. [12]
The United States, however, does not make reporting on hate crimes mandatory, meaning the FBI data gathered over the years is not an accurate representation of the correct number of hate crimes against LGBT Americans. Community-based anti-violence organizations are extremely valuable when reporting on or gathering statistics about hate crimes.
In recent years LGBT violence has been on the rise in the United States. The biggest act of violence occurred in Orlando when Omar Mateen attacked the Pulse nightclub in the city killing 49 and wounding 53 others. [13] This was not only the biggest attack on LGBT people but one of the biggest mass shootings in the United States history. By June 2018, the FBI had declined to classify the incident as an anti-gay hate crime, as evidence suggested that Mateen had scouted several different targets before choosing Pulse and that he did not know it was a gay nightclub. [14] There were also 28 Americans who identified as LGBT and were killed in 2016 alone. The United States has passed some legislation to combat increasing violence against LGBT people. In the late 1990s, the Hate Crime Statistics Act (P.L. 101–275) was passed [15] to try to prevent further hate crimes and enhance criminal sentences for people who do commit them. While this act was passed more than 20 years ago, local police officers often have no training on identification of hate crimes based on sexual preference. In 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed, which added gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability to federal hate crime law.
Several organizations have been established over the years to educate people about anti-LGBT violence or prevent such violence. Lambda Legal is an organization aimed at protecting civil rights, while True Colors Fund and the Human Rights Campaign are aimed at helping homeless LGBT youth to receive healthcare, housing, and education. There are organizations throughout the United States that have been established to provide care for LGBT people, such as the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. [16]
There are many effects of violence against LGBT people on both their psychological or mental health and physical health. Violent acts, including domestic and sexual abuse, towards the LGBT community may lead to depression, PTSD, suicidal behaviors, or trauma. [17] According to the authors of "The Effects of Polyvictimization on Mental and Physical Health Outcomes in an LGBTQ Sample", many people, especially LGBT, experience effects of anti-LGBT violence: "Although adverse outcomes may result from many different types of trauma exposure, the experience of interpersonal trauma or violence is particularly damaging compared to non-interpersonal trauma, and individuals with histories of interpersonal trauma are at increased risk for developing psychiatric conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, dissociation, and substance use issues." [18]
Hate crimes also affect the physical health of LGBT people. Victims of anti-LGBT violence may not want to follow their previous lifestyle. According to the authors of the research article, "Psychological Sequelae of Hate-Crime Victimization Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adults", it takes time to recover from the violence. [19] During their experiment, they observed that psychological distress increases for people who experienced violence within the previous 2 years. People who had been victimized more than 2 years ago had more mental issues including depression, anxiety, trauma, and many more: "It might also increase the length of time needed for recovery from a hate crime. In post hoc analyses of distress levels according to year of victimization, we observed that respondents tended to manifest elevated psychological distress if their most recent victimization occurred within the previous 2 years. Among respondents who had been victimized 3 to 5 years earlier, hate-crime victims had more symptoms of depression, anxiety, anger, and traumatic stress than non-bias crime victims." [19]
Violence against LGBT people does not exclude youth. LGBT youth might experience violence or rejection at school or from their family. For example, "Family violence against gay and lesbian adolescents and young people: a qualitative study." [20] mentions that family reactions to a youth coming out were violent. This then also affects a person's health and quality of life. The author then states how family violence against LGBT youth affects them: "Studies show that rejection and family violence in the out-coming process and the non-provision of social support have a direct impact on the health of homosexual adolescents and young people, with consequences such as: social isolation, depression, suicidal ideation and attempt, low performance, low self-esteem, higher social exposures and an increase in internalized homophobia." [20]
The following is a list of LGBT people that have been victims of violence. For many, there is evidence that the attack was related to their LGBT identity, but for others there is no documentation that there was a connection between their identity and the attacks.
On April 29, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend federal law to classify as "hate crimes" attacks based on a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity (as well as mental or physical disability). [62] The U.S. Senate passed the bill on October 22, 2009. [63] The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009. [64]
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) people frequently experience violence directed toward their sexuality, gender identity, or gender expression. This violence may be enacted by the state, as in laws prescribing punishment for homosexual acts, or by individuals. It may be psychological or physical and motivated by biphobia, gayphobia, homophobia, lesbophobia, and transphobia. Influencing factors may be cultural, religious, or political mores and biases.
The gay panic defense or homosexual advance defence is a strategy of legal defense, which refers to a situation in which a heterosexual individual charged with a violent crime against a homosexual individual claims they lost control and reacted violently because of an unwanted sexual advance that was made upon them. A defendant will use available legal defenses against assault and murder, with the aim of seeking an acquittal, a mitigated sentence, or a conviction of a lesser offense. A defendant may allege to have found the same-sex sexual advances so offensive or frightening that they were provoked into reacting, were acting in self-defense, were of diminished capacity, or were temporarily insane, and that this circumstance is exculpatory or mitigating.
Gwen Amber Rose Araujo was an American teenager who was murdered in Newark, California at the age of 17. She was murdered by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering that she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not the requested hate-crime enhancements to the charges. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no-contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a "trans panic defense"—an extension of the gay panic defense—was employed.
Brian Williamson was a Jamaican gay rights activist who co-founded the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG). He was known for being one of the earliest openly gay men in Jamaican society and one of its best known gay rights activists.
Violence against transgender people includes emotional, physical, sexual, or verbal violence targeted towards transgender people. The term has also been applied to hate speech directed at transgender people and at depictions of transgender people in the media that reinforce negative stereotypes about them. Trans and non-binary gender adolescents can experience bashing in the form of bullying and harassment. When compared to their cisgender peers, trans and non-binary gender youth are at increased risk for victimisation, which has been shown to increase their risk of substance abuse.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Jamaica face legal and social issues not experienced by heterosexual and gender-conforming people. Consensual sexual intercourse between same-sex partners is legally punishable by imprisonment.
Jody Dobrowski was an English 24-year-old assistant bar manager who was murdered on Clapham Common in south London. On 14 October, at around midnight, he was beaten to death with punches and kicks by two men who believed him to be gay, and pronounced dead in the early hours of 15 October. Tests carried out at St. George's Hospital in Tooting, South London revealed Dobrowski had a swollen brain, broken nose and extensive bruising to his neck, spine and groin. His family was unable to identify him due to his face being so badly disfigured and he had to be identified by fingerprints.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Armenia face legal and social challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents, due in part to the lack of laws prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity and in part to prevailing negative attitudes about LGBT persons throughout society.
Corrective rape, also called curative rape or homophobic rape, is a hate crime in which somebody is raped because of their perceived sexual orientation. The common intended consequence of the rape, as claimed by the perpetrator, is to turn the person heterosexual.
The history of violence against LGBT people in the United Kingdom is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex individuals (LGBTQI), legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United Kingdom. Those targeted by such violence are perceived to violate heteronormative rules and religious beliefs and contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBTQI may also be targeted.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Puerto Rico have gained some legal rights in recent years. Same sex relationships have been legal in Puerto Rico since 2003, and same-sex marriage and adoptions are also permitted. U.S. federal hate crime laws apply in Puerto Rico.
CeCe McDonald is an African American trans woman and LGBTQ activist. She came to national attention in June 2012 for accepting a plea bargain of 41 months for second-degree manslaughter of a man she stabbed after McDonald and her friends were assaulted in Minneapolis outside a bar near closing time. The attack, a year prior, was widely seen as racist and transphobic, and became physical when McDonald was struck in the face by the man's friend with "an alcoholic drink" glass causing a bleeding gash that needed stitches.
Dwayne Jones was a Jamaican 16-year-old boy who was killed by a violent mob in Montego Bay in 2013, after he attended a dance party dressed in women's clothing. The incident attracted national and international media attention and brought increased scrutiny to the status of LGBT rights in Jamaica.
Yishai Schlissel is a convicted Israeli murderer. He stabbed marchers during the Jerusalem gay pride parade in 2005, for which he served ten years in prison. On 30 July 2015, during the 2015 Jerusalem gay pride, he stabbed 16-year-old Shira Banki to death, and wounded five other people. The incident occurred just three weeks after his release from prison. On 24 August, Schlissel was indicted for murder, five counts of attempted murder, and wounding under aggravating circumstances, and detained until the end of proceedings. On 26 June 2016, he was sentenced to life plus 31 years in prison, as well as a fine of NIS 2,064,000 in damages.
Shelby Tracy Tom was a Canadian transgender woman who was strangled to death in North Vancouver, British Columbia, after 29-year-old Jatin Patel discovered that Tom was transgender during a sexual encounter.
In May 2020, a young transgender woman of color named Nina Pop was stabbed to death in her own Missouri apartment.
The gay gang murders are a series of suspected anti-LGBT hate crimes perpetrated by large gangs of youths in Sydney, between 1970 and 2010, with most occurring in 1989 and 1990. The majority of these occurred at local gay beats, and were known to the police as locations where gangs of teenagers targeted homosexuals. In particular, many deaths are associated with the cliffs of Marks Park, Tamarama, where the victims would allegedly be thrown or herded off the cliffs to their deaths. As many as 88 gay men were murdered by these groups in the period, with many of the deaths unreported, considered accidents or suicides at the time.