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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHate Crimes Against LGBT People Are Sadly Common
The massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday was the worst mass shooting in American history and the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11. Through another lens, however, it was not an outlier. The gunmans choice of target, a gay club, makes him just one of many to commit hate crimes against gay Americans. Although the magnitude and violence of the attack was unusual, the targeting of LGBT Americans is sadly common.
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Of 5,462 single-bias incidents (hate-crime incidents with one motivation) in the FBIs 2014 hate crime statistics database, 1,115, about a fifth, were motivated by bias against a sexual orientation or gender identity.1 (This count is almost certainly much lower than the actual number of hate crimes. Data on hate crimes is notoriously difficult to collect, as it relies heavily on self-reporting and many hate crimes are never categorized as such.) Of those incidents, 54 percent targeted gay men specifically. Only two groups were the targets of more hate crimes than gay men: black and Jewish people. (Obviously, all these groups arent mutually exclusive.)
--snip--
However, the shooters choice of location may have been all the more insidious for that. A gay-friendly bar or club is supposed to be a safe place. Even before Sundays shooting, nightclubs were slightly more dangerous for LGBT people than for other groups; only 1.6 percent of all hate crimes in 2014 occurred in bars and nightclubs, compared with the 2.1 percent of those that targeted people for their sexual orientation and gender identity.
The motivations of the killer may become clearer as investigators learn more. Nevertheless, in his choice to target gay people, he wasnt alone.
more...
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This won't come as surprise to GLBT people or our real allies, but it will undoubtedly be a shocker to some, even more so to those who think anti-Semitism is a "joke", "not a real problem", or "thing of the past". Keep in mind too, not all states report hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity, so how true are these numbers?
herding cats
(19,549 posts)I read it the day they posted the article, but then I figured it would drop like a rock if I posted it.
There's a lot of good information there, linked to even more good informative facts just for good measure.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)herding cats
(19,549 posts)But thank you for posting it, too.
Response to herding cats (Reply #1)
herding cats This message was self-deleted by its author.
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)Hatred of any group of people is sick and immoral, and to commit a hate crime against anyone because they are gay or Jewish or Muslim is against everything we should be standing for.
I'm so sorry that people here, now, in 2016, must deal with this hate. When I was a kid way back when, I can remember believing, naively, I now see, that racism would be eradicated in a generation. But no, all we had to do was elect a black president and the bigots crawled out of the woodwork. And this thing in Orlando is just sick.
We need to heal ourselves from this hatred, and the only way is to eradicate capitalism and reorganize ourselves as a species around human need instead of human greed. Because sadly, greed is nothing more than the fear one will not have enough, and this has been enough to generate the hatred that has killed millions.
sheshe2
(83,355 posts)Many/most of my friends are gay. I have been to those clubs. We danced.
LostOne4Ever
(9,267 posts)[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=#009999]LGBTQ+ people are not only more likely to be targeted, but also more likely to be treated harshly by the police.
Just doing a quick google search I found this:[/font]
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/06/06/lgbt-victims-cops-make-it-worse
[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=#009999]And this is especially true for black transwomen who can be arrested for walking while trans.
Hell, they can be arrested just for using a hotel room legally!
And if arrested might be thrown in with their assigned sex where they face even more violence! That or they might have to be put into solitary for their own protection which under prolonged circumstance is pretty much considered mental torture.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out the real number of violence against LGBTQ people is 2-3x higher than reported myself.[/font]
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)There are states which don't even include sexual orientation in hate crime stats.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)brer cat
(24,402 posts)another analysis of hate-crime data, which we all know is under reported as well as under appreciated by too many people.
Gabe Ortiz, an LGBT and immigrant rights advocate based in San Francisco
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/13/being-gay-in-america-is-still-a-radical-act/
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)and continues to harbor and encourage posters who add to the bigotry and division.
JudyM
(29,122 posts)large part.
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)Homophobia/Heterosexism just aren't "sexy" enough to be deemed worthy of discussion and certainly not worthy of being educated about its destructiveness, well, until something bad happens.
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)...you can add her name here: A thread for GLBT martyrs in the LGBT group.
Rex
(65,616 posts)It is pathetic that in 2016 we still have citizens running around making gay folks feel upset and unsafe in their own home town or anywhere they travel.
Then there are the assholes that pretend to be religious leaders, they also pretend gay folks are to blame for everything and condone using violence against the LGBT community.
Our society has a lot of insecure people that seem to feel better if they can project that insecurity on another group. IMO.
Sissyk
(12,665 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)And how we should hate Muslims because they hate LGBT. Of course these folks had never expressed concern for the LGBT community before.
In one instance I shut up one of those folks by saying Matthew Shepard wasn't killed by Muslims.
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)Both sides have been ABYSMAL in their response to this tragedy. But, I expected such nonsense and hate from the right; I wasn't as prepared when it came from the left. When we have people claiming (and then high-fiving each other or themselves) for knowing the shooter just "had to be a self-loathing gay man", it emphasizes the level of homophobia and heterosexism which plagues the left. How did they know? Well, clues like: he beat his wife (Myth: all gay men hate women); he took duck-lipped selfies (Myth: gay men are self-absorbed (as we know straight men never take selfies )); (possible reason for his attack on a gay club) maybe he was sexually abused as a boy/had a friend raped by a gay man (Myth: Gay men are sexual predators); (from his wife) he took too much time in the bathroom (Myth: all gay men are narcissistic and primp excessively); violent crimes like this against gay men are usually done by self-loathing gay men (MYTH...FUCKING MYTH: Homophobes are just self-loathing homosexuals).
It's that last one which has made its rounds at DU (actually, they all did) and other such sites which has really pissed me off, and made worse when gay people buy into that homophobic shit. Why is it always GAY MEN?! We never hear of WOMEN being accused of being super-secret lesbians?! David Duke, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Louis Farrakhan, Fred Phelps...should I go on? Are they also all "secret lovers of the cock?!" This type of homophobia, unfortunately and sadly excused by a few gay people themselves, is something so fucking engrained in society, that supposedly, self-identified liberals can't even see the bigoted nature of the accusation.
Just like the conservatives, too many on the liberal sides are patting themselves on the back for no goddamned good reason. The conservatives say "we will protect you" as if they have ever done such a thing, and the liberals say "we shouldn't let this be about Islamophobia, it is about the NRA/Israel (yes, that was an actual accusation)/the gun-humpers/racism/foreign policy (general)/Trump" all the while, conveniently, leaving out the main component, HOMOPHOBIA! Homophobia was treated as a side-show attraction, a mere flicker in the grand scheme of the event.
There have been some positive things from liberal allies of the GLBT, but wading through the homophobic and heterosexist shit, made those comments/articles/stories elusive gems. FFS, look at this article and the response?! More comments, recommendations and accolades were spat and spewed all over a piece of shit article with the wife claiming the FBI forbade her from "talking about the gay angle"! WTF!
The winners? The self righteous. The losers? Again...the GLBT community!
Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)Number23
(24,544 posts)off their asses to investigate the damned shooting because they knew it had happened at a gay club. Like the fact that the people that had been shot were more than likely gay meant that the shooting wasn't a big deal and not even worthy of fucking investigating. It was unreal.