HRC blames anti-LGBTQ+ politicians for national rise in hate crimes

Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes have been on the rise in the past year, standing in stark contrast to the overall downward trend of violent crime, according to the FBI’s most recent annual crime reports. The Human Rights Campaign says that anti-LGBTQ+ politicians are contributing to the violence.

In 2023, over 2,402 incidents of sexual orientation-based hate crimes were reported within the past year, a figure that is 500 higher than the amount reported in 2022.

Related:

Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in the U.S. rose sharply last year

The FBI is reporting a wave of hate crimes as anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the state level is being passed across the country.

In 2023, there were 401 reported gender identity-based hate crimes, with 146 targeting someone who was gender non-conforming.

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These figures stand in contrast to the overall trend of hate crimes. The data shows a smaller increase of around 2%, from 11,634 overall reports in 2022 to 11,862 reports in 2023. However, anti-violence advocates say that police departments significantly undercount the number of hate crimes due to bias or underreporting by queer people who may distrust law enforcement.

The report also references research from the Human Rights Campaign showing that these hate crimes have a disproportionate impact on Black trans women.

Not all of the reported hate crimes involved violent incidents, but rather a range of bias-motivated incidents that police report as hate crimes. The majority of hate crimes are those motivated by racism and xenophobia, particularly against immigrants and people of color, especially Black individuals.

The recent increase anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes is smaller than the the increase that occurred between 2021 and 2022. The year 2022 saw a 13.8% increase in reported crimes based on sexual orientation and a 32.9% increase in crimes based on gender identity compared to 2021.

“Every lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer person in this country should be free to live their lives without fear that we’ll be the target of a violent incident purely because of who we are and who we love,” Kelley Robinson, President of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement,

“Unfortunately, the latest FBI hate crimes data shows that even as public acceptance of LGBTQ+ people continues to grow, and overall crime continues to decline, hate crimes against us are not yet showing signs of subsiding. Make no mistake, politicians who spread disinformation and demonize our lives are contributing to this violence.”

In contrast to hate crimes, violent crimes overall decreased by 3% from 2022 to 2023. Murder and non-negligent manslaughter saw a 11.6% decrease, rape saw a 9.4% decrease, aggravated assault decreased by 2.8%, and robbery decreased by 0.3%.

Violent crime as a whole has been on a downward trend since a peak during the pandemic. Levels are now back down to comparable rates from before the pandemic, where it has been steadily decreasing since the 1990s.

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