The Gloomy Truth About LGBT Hate Crimes

Nationwide, reported hate crimes committed against people because of their race, ethnicity or religion are down. Those are three large categories - and all protected under federal hate crimes laws.

Sexual orientation and gender identity, however, are not protected under federal hate crimes laws.  How are these groups of people faring in nationwide hate crimes statistics?  Well, you could say gloomy, frightening and concerning, and evidence of an attack on an entire group of people. Why?  Because since 2005, there's been a 24 percent increase in crimes committed against people who are (or are perceived) to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

And those are just the ones that are reported.  Because there's no federal hate crimes protection for LGBT people, many states don't report violence committed against someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  So that 24 percent increase is not only inaccurate, it's likely significantly lower than the actual rate of violence committed toward LGBT people in this country.

Recent examples of hate crimes committed against LGBT people show the need for action on federal hate crimes legislation by Congress and the Obama administration.

Case in point:

• Two weeks ago, in Richmond, California, a 28-year-old lesbian was attacked by four people after having parked her car. She was assaulted, kidnapped, and taken to a nearby location where she was raped by all four men -- all while her attackers were making fun of her sexual orientation.
• As our Animal Rights Blogger Stephanie Ernst wrote about yesterday, 24-year-old gay animal rights activist Nathan Runkle was brutally beaten outside of a gay nightclub in Dayton, Ohio.  Runkle sustained two facial fractures, a broken nose, deviated septum, and severe facial bruising after an attack by an anti-gay assailant.  To add even more insult to this case, Ohio doesn't recognize hate crimes committed against LGBT people, so Runkle's attack has been labeled a regular assault and will not be included in hate crimes statistics.
• In November, Duanna Johnson, a transgender Tennessee woman, was shot and killed in Memphis.  A few months earlier, Johnson had been taken into police custody as a suspected prostitute, where Memphis police officers beat her and taunted her about her transgender status (the police brutality on display here was caught on film, and resulted in the Memphis Police Department having to go through diversity training).   And on Christmas Eve last week, another transgender person was shot in Memphis. As the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition notes, this is the third shooting against a transgender person in six months.
• On December 7, a gay Ecuadorian immigrant living Brooklyn was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime.  Jose Sucuzhanay was walking with his brother when attackers came up and started taunting him with anti-Hispanic and anti-gay slurs.  His attackers kicked him and beat him with an alumninum baseball bat and beer bottles, leaving him brain-dead.  He died a week later in the hospital,
  

Those are just four examples.  And they're all within the past 60 days.

There's absolutely no excuse for not passing the Matthew Shepard Act, which will extend federal hate crimes protections to sexual orientation and gender identity.  That's the first step toward addressing the gloomy picture when it comes to LGBT hate crimes.  The second step is recognizing that until the root causes of violence committed toward LGBT people are addressed, these types of hate crimes will continue to rise.