Hate Crimes Toward LGBTQ People

The U.S. government recently has enacted several policies or legislation that protect the civil liberties of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the areas of marriage and open participation in the armed forces. Such advances correspond with the increasingly more positive, less prejudiced attitudes toward LGBTQ people among the general public. Nonetheless, research continues to show that LGBTQ people are disproportionately victims of bias-motivated crimes based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Moreover, scholarship in this area suggests that hate crimes, relative to crimes that are not bias motivated, negatively affect the LGBTQ population in unique ways that warrant attention from researchers, clinicians, legislators, and the general public. The present entry defines and describes anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, with emphasis ...