Hate Crimes: The LGBT Community

On November 14, 2008 in New York, A 22 year old Transgender woman named Lateisha Green went to a house party with her brother and her friends.They were sitting outside in the car and a man came up to the car and shot her to death.Many people think the man shot her because of the way she looks.The man name is Dwight DeLee while he was shooting her, witnesses said that he made anti-gay slurs. Dwight DeLee was found guilty of manslaughter and have to face 25 years in prison. Dwight was the second person to be proven guilty of a hate crime against a Transgender woman. Hate crimes are a crime that’s usually violent that occurs when a person targets a victim because of his and her race,religion or sexual orientation.Hate crimes have a negative effect on society because people do not feel

Victims need to be compensated for the damages inflicted. The victims of these crimes are targeted for a reason they cannot control. They are left without a paddle surrounded by sharks, and after the fact they are left with even less. “The government should exert efforts at addressing violence committed against LGBT members in keeping

Since the beginning of their existence and in today’s society, the community of LGBT workers are not being treated fairly or getting their fair share that they deserve in the workplace. They are victims to high rates of workplace discrimination. Instead of being judged as workers and what they bring to their jobs and how they work, they are being judged by their sexual preferences and appearance. Being a gay or transgender worker causes them to be mistreated, not judged for the actual workers they are, and most importantly, halts a majority of them in better career and job opportunities. Although under federal law it is illegal to fire someone who is either gay or transgender, they are still either being denied employment or being terminated from their jobs because of their gender category or sexual orientation.

Horrific, unthinkable acts of violence against a young gay man, Matthew Shepard, took his life in 1998. This social problem was thrust into the mainstream media largely by his mother, Judy Shepard. She used her tragedy to create awareness, outrage and support exposing violence based solely on sexual orientation. Her work along with activists that joined her helped create our nation’s first hate crime legislation that included crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. It also made several other important provisions such as tracking hate crimes based on gender identity (transsexuals), funding to investigate and other critical supports. The Matthew Shepard Foundation does significant work on hate prevention programs in communities and continues to work toward tolerance today through its efforts to provide a voice and support for LGBT youth. Although some progress has been made, different forms of violence against gay and transgendered youth remains a troubling condition.

In this Gays and lesbians deserve equal protection against the hate crimes that happen in the world. Aren't we told as young children and also throughout life to treat others as we would want to be treated? So why are some decimated against based on sexual preference? The statistics show the percentages of the hate discrimination against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community. The violence that they are pitted against, due to people's discrimination against them, in life. And I will also mention the discrimination that the LGBT community goes through and what they miss out based on sexual preference.

Did you know in 2016 in the district of Columbia LGBT hate crimes increased by 59% almost doubling from what it was in 2015? Hate crimes are not uncommon but they have gotten worse over the last few years. The percent of Gay/Lesbian people in the US is about 3.8% and among this hate crimes are extremely common most taking place in the person's own home.

Because of this many of them arrive to work in fear of rejection or being ‘outed’ causing them to lose their job. As discovered by expert Cosby Burns “Discrimination and unequal treatment on the job inflicts significant economic harm on gay and transgender public-sector employees and their families.” (http://www.americanprogress.org) Many open homosexuals will be turned down for employment just because of their sexual orientation despite qualifications, even though it is completely irrelevant to their skills and no one’s business but their own.

Around the world, crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity are on the rise. According to 76crimes.com, the Trans Murder Monitoring project of Transgender Europe reported 1,731 transgender and gender-diverse people were murdered in more than 44 countries around the world between 2008 and 2014. Nearly 500 of those murders occurred between May 2013 and December 2014. According the FBI, approximately 1,200 out of 6,000 hate crimes committed in 2013 were based on sexual orientation in the United States.

Courage is standing up for what you believe is right, even when you know others will hate you or worse. There are multiple activists for the LGBTQ+ community, yet there have still been more hate crimes against the community. The community has been involved in hate crimes since the 1960s, and even before that. 50-60 or more years may seem like a long time to teenagers and young adults, but it’s actually not. People in the community have died to others acts against a person being with someone of the same sex or changing their gender identity. There are multiple reasons why hate crimes on the LGBTQ+ community need to be lowered drastically.

For 29 States in the US, it is legal to fire an employee for being gay, lesbian or bisexual. 38 States in the Union have no laws on record preventing discrimination against gender identity or expression—commonly known as transgender. While these statistics may be disheartening for many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) individuals, it is not all doom and gloom. Employment protections and rights for GLBTs have grown exponentially in the past two decades.

Emotional distress can happen through extreme and outrageous behavior and bringing intentional infliction (Rotondo, 2015). It is difficult for LGBTQ individuals to live with people judging them as they try to come out the closet. For example, in the District court for the southern district of New York in Moye v. Gary, an LGBTQ employee was rejected in intentional infliction of emotional distress when her supervisor called her a “fag” and a lesbian. The court implied that extreme actions beyond name calling were more necessary to constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress (Rotondo, 2015). This is where these people were wrong; discrimination starts off with name calling which is a sign of bullying and can lead into dangerous actions. Also, the District of Connecticut indicated that LGBTQ should expect and tolerate some level of harassment obtaining their sexual identities and that intentional infliction of emotional distress is a sign of weakness (Rotondo,2015). LGBTQ has also faced discrimination in securing employment benefits and have limited access to medical benefits and have disqualifications with household family related benefits such as time off with family illness

furthermore, academics such as Gernstenfeld (2004) suggest that the focus of hate crime should not necessarily all be on the victim, but rather the group they are associated with, minority or otherwise (See Chakraborti & Garland 2009 PAGE). Others like Sheffield (1995) takes in to account social and political factors that “legitimate” violence (See Perry 2001, Page 9), the perpetrator commits a hate crime because they are acting upon pre-existing prejudice beliefs. Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) individuals have long been considered unequal’s in society, mainly because up until recent legislation adjustment, allowing gay marriage; they haven’t completely had the same human rights as ‘straight’ individuals. Not having the same rights could be an indicator as to why sexual orientation related hate crime is so common. Lesbian, Gay,

Hate crimes committed against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and/or transgendered individuals constitute the third-highest category of hate crimes reported to the FBI -- 14% of all hate crimes reported nationally, according to the Human Rights

In 1999 Billy Jack Gaither was beaten to death with an ax handle. Gaither was a gay man who supposedly made advances toward his alleged murder. Gathers murder was not reported and no one was ever prosecuted for it. Also in 1999, there was the Los Angeles synagogue shooting. Congress realized there was a major need to combat hate crimes (Kalam, 2000). No human should be allowed to kill another human just because they disagree with their sexual identity. If this happens we will be allowing people to kill other humans just because they do not like their hair color and eye color and then be become Hitler.

Shortly after I came out as a transgender male, I didn't really pass as society's “male” figure. My voice was higher, I still had a pretty girlish figure, and I hadn't discovered a term called binding yet. A lot of people thought i was just a very tomboyish girl or gay so I would often get called the degrading term “faggot”. To me I had known I wasn't a faggot. I wasn't gay at all, I was just a boy would who was scared of what society would think of me. Dictionary.com defines the word “faggot” as “a contemptuous term used to refer to a male homosexual.” So I was confused, how am I a faggot? I was just happy to be out as who I really was, but society felt the need to shame me because of something I couldn't change. No matter how more common that being gay or being apart of the LGBTQ+ community is, there's always gonna be people who are gonna shame and hate. When people take it so far as to do hate crimes, that's when it goes too far. Hate and discrimination on the LGBTQ+ community needs to stop. Why can't people love who they wanna love and be who they want to be without things being wrong?