Hate Violence Against LGBT Community Is On a Dangerous Rise

by Jamilah King, Tuesday, June 4 2013, 1:19 PM EST

It’s been less than a month since the brutal slaying of Mark Carson, an openly gay black man who was shot and killed in New York City’s West Village. Police continue to investigate Carson’s death as a hate crime and have had a suspect in custody since early on in the case, but the murder has become one of the more prominent examples of a frighetening increase in hate crimes targeting people in LGBT communities.

That increase is the focus of a new report on anti-LGBT hate violence released today by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. The report looks specifically at incidents of reported violence that took place in 2012 and found that transgender people of color were among the most impacted communities.

“Though the recent spate of hate violence incidents in New York City has captured the media’s attention, this report demonstrates that severe acts of violence against gay men, transgender people and LGBTQ people of color are, unfortunately, not unique to Manhattan nor to the past month, but rather part of a troubling trend in the United States,” said Chai Jindasurat, NCAVP Coordinator at the New York City Anti- Violence Project.

The report is the most comprehensive look at hate crimes against LGBT communities in the U.S. It draws on data from 15 anti-violence programs in 15 states.

Some of the key findings:

LGBTQ people of color were 1.82 times as likely to experience physical violence compared to white LGBTQ people

Gay men were 1.56 times as likely to require medical attention compared to other survivors reporting.

There were 2,016 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence in 2012.

In 2012, NCAVP documented 25 anti-LGBTQ homicides in the United States, which is the 4th highest yearly total ever recorded by NCAVP.

The 2012 report found that 73.1 percent of all anti-LGBTQ homicide victims in 2012 were people of color. Of the 25 known homicide victims in 2012 whose race/ethnicity was disclosed, 54 percent were Black/African American, 15 percent Latino, 12 percent white and 4 percent Native American.

via Hate Violence Against LGBT Community Is On a Dangerous Rise – COLORLINES.