Anti-LGBTQ Violence Skyrockets
Standing up for the marginalized is a moral necessity
After enjoying decades of increasing tolerance and freedom, LGBTQ people around the world are experiencing strong push-back. A rise of rightwing populism is spawning waves of violence, and conservative religious institutions are pushing hard to keep queer folks morally marginalized.
The safest places in the world for LGBTQ people are becoming increasingly dangerous. In the United States, violent assaults began to rise rapidly in 2016, and rates continue to soar.
In England and Wales, anti-LGBTQ stalking, harassment and violent assault rates have risen more than 150% over the past four years, according to The Guardian. Furthermore, Metropolitan Police research shows that anti-LGBTQ hate crime in the UK is much more likely to be seriously violent than other forms of hate crimes.
This isn’t news. The rise in violence has been well reported —
LGBTQ activists and advocacy organizations like the Anti-Violence Project and the Human Rights Campaign have been sounding the alarm for more than two years.
Being LGBTQ is enough to put anyone at elevated risk of assault. Being LGBTQ and Black, Latinx, or a migrant ups the chances of assault dramatically.
On June 7, the epidemic of violence in the UK exploded into public awareness as two queer women (one identifies as gay, the other as bisexual) were beaten bloody on a public bus in London.
Their story and images went viral —
For a few days, the topic of anti-LGBTQ violence trended. News outlets ran stories, pundits opined, and activists took a moment in the spotlight to remind the general public of genuinely scary numbers.
Then the news cycle moved on. A week later, one of the two women, who identified herself only as Chris, went public in The Guardian with a crucial question:
You saw me covered in blood on a bus. But do you get outraged about all homophobia?
She has this to say about violence and tolerance of it:
A refrain I’ve heard ad nauseum is “I can’t believe this happened — it’s 2019”. I disagree. This attack and the ensuing media circus are par for the course in 2019. In both my native United States and here in the United Kingdom, it always has been open season on the bodies of (in no specific order) people of colour, indigenous people, transgender people, disabled people, queer people, poor people, women and migrants... The press coverage… was not coincidental to our complexions. Neither was the disproportionate online reaction over the victimisation of a pretty brunette and blonde. The commodification and exploitation of my face came at the expense of other victims whose constant persecution apparently does not warrant similar moral outrage.
As an LGBTQ advocate and activist, I write almost every day about equality — about abuse and persecution that LGBTQ people face both in the US and around the world.
According to the Pew Research Center, people almost always learn their intolerant views in church.
Like Chris, I know from constant exposure to facts that the violence she experienced in London is normal. Her assault didn’t surprise me, because assaults like hers happen every day.
Also like her, I know that violence is intersectional. Transgender women in the United States face stunning rates of violent assault. One in three transgender women report having been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. But transgender women of color are assaulted at the highest levels, some studies showing rates that approach 100%.
Being LGBTQ is enough to put anyone at elevated risk of assault. Being LGBTQ and Black, Latinx, or a migrant ups the chances of assault dramatically.
Like Chris, I know that people are largely unaware of violence.
Most people I know are privileged. The people most likely to read my stories are urban progressives who may never in their lives have experienced the consequences of homophobia and transphobia.
Educated white people in urban bubbles live very differently from most Americans. Because I have a small public voice, I hear from LGBTQ people all over who suffer from oppression and discrimination.
I work to tell their stories, but often I feel like I’m shouting into the wind. People don’t see violence and oppression up close, so they can’t accept it as real. I think maybe it takes a personal epiphany, like the time I was gay bashed, to transform theoretical knowledge into lived truth.
Violent assault is only the beginning —
- LGBTQ youth are five times more likely to attempt suicide than straight/cis youth. LGBTQ suicide attempts are almost three times more likely to result in death.
- 40 percent of homeless youth in the US identify as LGBTQ, with family rejection for religious reasons being the leading cause.
- Only 41% of LGBTQ people in the US are protected from discrimination in employment and housing. LGBTQ people are fired and evicted every single day for being who we are.
I could go on; that’s just a beginning. It’s hard to know how to be brief and to make those numbers human and compelling. It’s hard to know how to leverage their power to produce action.
We need action, but people so often don’t understand. Almost half of Americans incorrectly believe federal law protects LGB people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.
Standing up for the marginalized is a moral necessity
Individuals, organizations, and states assault and oppress LGBTQ people, because doing that is normal. Marginalized people live in the margins because the majority are TAUGHT that abuse is OK.
Here’s a dramatic, but very relevant example pulled from last week’s queer news feed:
A Tennessee pastor and sheriff’s department detective preached in a June 6 sermon that LGBT people are “freaks” who are “worthy of death.”
The Baptist pastor, Grayson Fritts, called for the government to send a riot team to a Pride parade scheduled for June 22 in Knoxville. He said LGBTQ people should be arrested, tried, and executed if convicted.
That’s not going to happen, of course. The man is an extremist. Tennessee officials are vowing to protect the Pride event. Criminalizing homosexuality and gender variance is a Constitutional non starter.
But his extreme views are common —
LGBTQ people in the US hear voices like that all the time. They’re all over social media, work sites, and places of education. A large minority of Americans are convinced that members of gender and sexual minorities are immoral and that society should not tolerate us. According to the Pew Research Center, people almost always learn their intolerant views in church.
For example, one week ago today, the Roman Catholic Church released a major document on education, a sugar coated toxic pill that ignores medical science, morally condemns transgender people, and urges that LGB people not raise children.
While the authors threw in a few platitudes about respect and dialogue, the main message was one of exclusion, moral condemnation, and marginalization. People who learn from that document will learn to oppress LGBTQ people.
This is normal.
Evangelicals and other conservative Christians also single out LGBTQ people for moral condemnation. They aren’t always as extreme as Pastor Fritts in Tennessee, but the message is essentially the same: LGBTQ people are not fit to associate with unless they renounce who they are.
Major religions even call for criminalizing LGBTQ people —
In January 2012, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon gave a speech calling on African nations to repeal laws that criminalize “homosexual conduct.” In response, Cardinal Robert Sarah, one of the highest ranking leaders of the Catholic Church, called the speech “stupid.” He urged African bishops to stand firm on putting gay people in prison.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, commonly thought to be in contention to become Pope one day, took a slightly softer line, but suggested that he’s OK with putting people in prison for being gay so long as cultural traditions support it. Then he implied that gay people are immoral.
Again, people almost always learn their intolerant views in church, but standing up for the marginalized is a moral necessity.
All of us must become more aware of violence. All of us must become more aware of discrimination and persecution. All of us must take action. We must fight against systems of faith and philosophies that normalize the marginalization of minorities.
Institutions that teach that members of gender and sexual minorities are immoral or less than equal cause violence, cause oppression, cause pain, and cause suffering.
The insipid refrain of, “Everyone has a right to their own beliefs,” is something all of us must learn to strike from our vocabularies. When beliefs cause violent assaults and state oppression, then the beliefs themselves are immoral.
We must recognize that, and we must do something about it. Here’s a really important question for everyone to turn over for a while.