08/18/2024
Hate crimes against LGBTQ+ persist even as overall hate crime rate decrease
It is good to hear that the California Department of Justice (DOJ) reported that the overall hate crime rate decreased by 7.1% in 2023 as compared to the previous year 2022. But the gladness cannot be full when you hear that hate crimes reported against LGBTQ+ communities continue to rise at alarming rates as reported by the same office.
According to the head of DOJ chief Attorney General Rob Bonta, data reported to DOJ in 2023 shows that between 2022 and 2023, there were 405 reported hate crime events motivated by sexual orientation bias or an increase of 3.6% from the previous year and 76 hate crime events motivated by anti-transgender or anti gender-nonconforming bias or an increase of 7.04% from the previous year.
In a briefing sponsored by Ethnic Media Services & California Civil Rights Department dubbed Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Crimes Still Rising on July 18, 2024, representatives from the California Civil Rights Department, community-based organizations that partner with the state’s first-ever multilingual hotline CA vs Hate, and LGBTQ+ advocates discussed the rise, including how people may have different experiences of hate and discrimination depending on their race, age, class, gender, sexuality, and more.
The speakers shared their perspectives on these issues and on increasing rates of hate in California and on a national level and also discussed the latest data from the first year of CA vs Hate, demonstrating how the LGBTQ+ community has helped shape the hotline and has been supported by the new reporting hotline and the services provided via the care coordination network.
Among those who shared their time for the discussion were Deputy Director of Strategic Initiatives and External Affairs, The Civil Rights Department Becky Monroe, Black Leadership Council, Director of The Coalition for Justice and Equality Across Movements, Director of The Center to End the Epidemic Toni Newman, Legal Support Staff and Grant Administrator, St. Johns Community Health Legal Services Department Andy Ruiz and Coordinator LGBTQ+ District Resource and Support, Santa Clara County Office of Education Aries Yumul.
Monroe opened the discussion in their mission is to protect people of California from all forms of unlawful discrimination and that hate crimes is a fact and that acts of hate do not happen in a vacuum but happen in the context of other forms of civil rights protections.
“It makes sense that the California Civil Rights Department would be the home to this work because we enforce protections against employment, discrimination, housing. We provide civil legal services and civil support and civil legal enforcement with respect to hate violence. Enforcing all forms of civil rights, protections is critical to addressing and combating hate,” Monroe informed. “I think it is important to note that we know this data state, like federal data, is under reported for many reasons and that hearing directly from the community who may not feel safe to report or from communities who have reported but it's still not being shared accurately.”
“On the chart included in the Attorney General’s Office most recent report that while we noticed that there is underreporting it is still important to note trends. In here, you see hate on the basis of sexual orientation increased 3.6%. You see the data around Anti-LGBTQ data may not match what the community uses, and that's an important note. But based on the data we have, that's an increase of 86%. If you look at hate crimes, targeting people based on sexual orientation between 2021 and 2022 increased 29%. So we have a consistent increase in acts of hate, and I think that is important to flag,” Monroe believes.
Monroe continues that the broader message here is that it is known there is a continuing increase hearing directly from communities that this is a time and “this is indeed a call to action and a crisis that we all need to respond to.”
Newman talked about black transwomen with data from the human rights campaign that reported that as of 2024, nineteen transgender and gender expansive people whose lives were tragically taken to violent means, including gun, on intimate partner and violence in 2024.
“Out of those, 68% of the victims were people of color, 32% were black transgender women. What we're finding is that of the deaths of the LGBTQ and of trans folk. Over 40 on the average per year, which is a big number, are transwomen of color,” Newman stated. “I have 30 years of lived experience as a transwoman of color, had graduated from Wake Forest and found myself homeless, without family and friends. So I have lived through what it is to be on the streets, have no home, and what hate looks like up close and personal. It is still going on not at that rate. But these this type of hate is still occurring.”
Newman added that the depth of transwomen in the United States remains a critical issue highlighting three intersections – racism, transphobia and systemic violence. Transgender women, particularly those of color, disproportionately have high rates of violence and fatality over any of the trans community, male or female, of any other race.
“Since 2013, over 85% of transgender and gender nonconforming people who were killed were people of color, and most of that were black transwomen making up two-thirds of these victims. In 2013, HRC and the FBI started tracking transgender hate. This violence that we see are occurring at high numbers. Last year was 23 transgender folk 19 of those were transwomen of color. The year before was almost 30, over 24 of those were transwomen of color, mainly black. So black, transwomen of color are facing high death rates in the United States, as well as violence, job discrimination and hate,” rued Newman. “It occurs nationwide with States like Texas, Florida, and California, having the highest number of reported fatalities. And we here at Trends can work, or addressing in and combating the violence by trying to give every transgender individual a job as well as chance can work.”
Ruiz echoed that events such as hate incidents, hate speech, and hate crimes definitely have escalated and rise in violence towards LGBTQ people.
“Specifically, I address this issue regarding the political atmosphere and landscape. There are a lot of bills currently in the United States that are targeting transgender people. And definitely, during these times of political turmoil, as I like to call them, a lot of violence starts to escalate,” Ruiz lamented. “My work that I've created and done here with stop the hate was as the first staff attorney hired at St. John's and predominantly a lot of my work was educating folks about their rights when it comes to being victims of hate crimes and part of that work also meant having to engage law enforcement, use restorative justice, and other methods to provide some sort of justice for individuals that are facing these crimes. What I found in my work, that the highest populations that were being targeted were LGBTIQ+ people, transgender individuals, as well as undocumented people.”
Yumul admitted that there's a lot in the day to day that is done and that legislation is great, but does not change the hearts and minds of people.
“And those of us educators, nonprofit and organizers who are really on the ground, we are trying to get folks together to understand the work that we're doing to benefit everybody. There are public forums that we do and go about planning. There's a lot of things that we do with our community that really do go unnoticed. And I think that if we bring that to life, then we're part of the community. We are talking and listening to each other. We're really trying to make everything better for everybody,” Yumul advises.
Captions:
Becky Monroe
Toni Newman
Andy Ruiz
Aries Yumul