Unfinished Lives

Anti-LGBT violence is up 28% in one year

As Stonewall 40 approaches next week, a New York-based coalition of anti-violence programs reports that bias crimes against LGBT people rose 28% from 2007 to 2008.  The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) confirms the grim trend Unfinished Lives has been reporting for months: hate crimes against members of the sexual minority are not only higher than at any time in a decade, but the degree of brutality in the execution of these crimes has also intensified.  Marcus Franklin of the Associated Press notes for the Huffington Post that the 29 confirmed bias-related murders of queer folk in 2008 reported by the NCAVP matches the number of similar killings it registered in its 1999 report.  The Unfinished Lives Project has noted dramatic increases in anti-LGBT murders and assaults since the latter part of 2008 in California, Michigan, Minnesota, and Tennessee, and has highlighted the extreme savagery of these attacks as in the case of 45 stab wounds in U.S. Army veteran Michael Scott Goucher’s murder in East Stroudsburg, PA, and Duanna Johnson’s shooting death in Memphis, TN.  The Huffpost article issued today quotes Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, which co-ordinates the NCAVP nationally with pointing to an increase of violence during the presidential campaign last fall, as well as ominous increases during the high-profile national debates over same-sex marriage, the possible passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and the proposed repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT).  ”The more visibility there is the more likely we’re going to see backlash, and that’s exactly what we see here,” Stapel said.  Since the NCAVP reports anti-Transgender hate crimes in distinction from the annual FBI’s hate crimes report that does not, Stapel is able to reference a more accurate picture of the landscape of peril in which LGBT Americans find themselves.  Even so, organizations from only 25 of the 50 states report to the NCAVP, indicating that the

Duanna Johnson, Transwoman, murdered in Memphis

actual number of bias-related hate crimes against LGBT people may be much higher.  Additional factors arguing for higher numbers of these crimes than are reported by either the NCAVP or the FBI are the stigma and despair often associated with violent crimes against queer women and men.  Local law enforcement agencies tend to skew their investigations away from anti-gay or transgender motives as a reflection of the bias rampant in their home locales.  Victims often fear exposure and media scrutiny for themselves and their loved ones, and therefore do not report crimes against their persons.  LGBT victims are often discredited as sources of reliable information and are routinely blamed somehow for their own misfortune.  Finally, as the Unfinished Lives Project has noted in repeated instances, American heterosexism and homophobia have created a climate for LGBT people such that their lives and deaths are valued less than those of other people, causing reports of attacks and murders against them to be far less likely to gain attention.

The high-profile events surrounding Pride 2009 will be a tempting target for hate groups around the country.  At no time since the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998 has the public presence of LGBT people and their allies been more significant than this season.