FBI finds that one in five hate crimes in the US is motivated by an “anti-LGBTQ bias”

14th November 2019

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And trans people alone were targeted in over 2% of all hates crimes last year.

New data from the FBI, shows that out of the 7,120 hate crimes that were committed in the country last year, nearly one in five of them had been motivated by an “anti-LGBTQ bias.”

Last year, in the US there were 7,120 hate crime incidents recorded. Out of these incidents, people were targeted because of their sexual orientation 1,196 times, while 168 were targeted because of their gender identity.

Breaking the figures down even more, 726 men were targeted because they were gay, 129 women were targeted for being a lesbian, 303 were targeted for being LGBTQ and 21 people were targeted for being bisexual. A further 17 people were targeted because they were straight.

Meanwhile, 142 people were targeted because of their trans identity, while 26 were targeted because of their gender non-conforming identity.

Despite less hate crimes being committed last year in the US when compared to 2017, the amount of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community is on the rise.

In 2017, the LGBTQ community comprised of around 17% of all hate crimes committed in the US, and that number has now jumped to 19%. As for members of the trans community, hate crimes targeting them have increased by 34%.

The FBI data doesn’t confirm what kind of hate crime was committed, so it’s uncertain whether these were violent or verbal attacks on people. It also places things like businesses, organisations and society on the whole as victims.

However, NBC reports that this data is not definite. Out of the 16,039 law enforcement agencies that voluntarily took part in the Hate Crime Statistics Program, only 2,026 actually reported any hate crimes. The entire state of Alabama did not report a single hate crime in the entirety of last year.

The US isn’t the only place experiencing a rise in hates crimes against the LGBTQ community, as anti-LGBTQ hate crimes have more than doubled in the past five years in the UK, increasing by 144% since 2013-2014.

Some campaigners have linked the rise in statistics to better reporting, but also warned that the rise could be linked to a rise in right-wing populism in England and Wales.

Taz Edwards-White, an alliance manager at the equalities and diversity organisation Metro, said: “There is a tension, and even within our own LGBT community there is a tension. I believe it’s a direct result of people feeling unsafe due to rise of the rightwing political movement.

“What we see in our services is lots of people experience day-to-day verbal attacks or violence and aggressive language and homophobic attitudes … We do believe the political climate has had an impact: people feel unsafe. What is happening in central government and all the scapegoating has an effect.”

And since 2016, anti-trans attacks in the UK have increased by a shocking 81%. 36 police forces supplied data surrounding hate crimes, and in 34 of those constabularies anti-trans attacks had increased. In the case for West Yorkshire Police and South Yorkshire Police, the amount of anti-trans crimes had trebled.

Wales saw anti-trans attacks more than double with 82 hate crimes reported last year, compared to 37 in 2016-2017. Meanwhile Police Scotland saw an increase from 76 to 92.