Violence against LGBTQ people

Violence against LGBT people, queer identifying and the same-sex attracted are actions which may occur either at the hands of individuals or groups, or as part of governmental enforcement of laws targeting people who are perceived to violate heteronormative rules and who contravene protocols of gender roles. People who are mistakenly perceived to be LGBT may also be targeted.

A hate crime is when individuals become victimized because of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation (Conklin,1992)(CSVR). Hate crimes against homosexual people often occur because the perpetrators are homophobic. The attacks can also be blamed on society itself. A variety of religious groups as well as proponents of extremist political ideologies condemn homosexuality and relate it to being weak, ill, feminine, and morally wrong. Religion plays a significant role in perpetuating these views. Some religious followers believe that the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, while other religious leaders and people have dismissed the claim as exaggeration and misinterpretation

Violence targeted at people because of their perceived sexuality may include threats, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, rape, torture, attempted murder and murder. These actions may be caused by cultural, religious, or political mores and biases.

In the United States, the FBI reported that 15.6% of hate crimes reported to police in 2004 were founded on perceived sexual orientation. Sixty-one percent of those attacks were against gay men, 14% against lesbians, 2% against heterosexuals and 1% against bisexuals, while attacks against LGBT people at large made up 20%. Violence based on perceived gender identity was not recorded in the report.

The FBI reported that for 2006, hate crimes against gays increased to 16%, from 14% in 2005, as percentage of total documented hate crimes across the U.S. The 2006 annual report, released on November 19, 2007, also said that hate crimes based on sexual orientation are the third most common type, behind race and religion.

The origins of persecution of LGBT people

See also: Homosexuality in ancient Rome

See also: Homosexuality in ancient Greece

See also: History of same-sex unions

There is evidence that same-sex unions have occurred since the beginning of recorded history in Egypt, China, Greece, Rome and Japan. Famous lovers include the Egyptian couple Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum and the Greek couple Harmodius and Aristogiton. The first recorded use of the word "marriage" for same-sex couples occurred during the Roman Empire. A number of such marriages were recorded during that period.

The rise of Christianity coincided with changed attitudes to same-sex unions. In the year 342, the Christian emperors Constantius and Constans declared same-sex marriage to be illegal. In the year 390, the Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius declared homosexual sex to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be publicly burned alive. The Christian emperor Justinian I (527-565) made homosexuals a scapegoat for problems such as "famines, earthquakes, and pestilences."

State-sponsored violence

Main article: LGBT rights by country or territory

The first recorded Abrahamic laws against sexual intercourse between men are dated to circa 550 BC, during the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people; they are recorded in Leviticus, and they prescribe the death penalty. Similar laws are found across Indo-European cultures in Lex Scantinia in Ancient Rome and nith in protohistoric Germanic culture, or the Middle Assyrian Law Codes dating 1075 BCE.

Since the rise of Christianity, homosexual activity has been repressed by certain governing bodies and members of society under pain of mutilation, death and social ostracism. Such laws and codes (in English-speaking societies, usually describing male homosexuality as buggery or sodomy), were in force in Europe from the fifth to the twentieth centuries, and in Muslim countries from the beginning of the Muslim era up to and including the present day. Among the states that have historically punished homosexuality with death are:

• Abbasid Baghdad under the Caliph Al-Hadi (785-786)
• The City of Florence during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance;
  • Illustrative victims: Giovanni di Giovanni (1350– 1365?), Florentine boy, castrated and "burned between the thighs with a red-hot iron" by court order;
• The Swiss canton of Zürich in the Renaissance
  • Illustrative victims: Knight von Hohenberg (d. 1482), Swiss knight, burned at the stake together with his lover, his young squire;
• The kingdom of France during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
  • Illustrative victims: Jacques Chausson (1618– 1661), French writer, burned alive for attempting to seduce the son of a nobleman;
• England from 1533 until 1861 (see Buggery Act 1533);
• Nazi Germany (see History of homosexual people in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust);

Islamic world

• Death penalty in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban (1996-2001);
• Iraq, post war (2003–)
  • In January 2007, a United Nations report described the increased persecution, torture and extrajudicial killing of Iraqi lesbians and gay men by the Shia death squads of the Badr and Sadr militias (the armed wings of the two main Shia parties that control the government of Iraq). In 2005, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa on his website calling for the execution of gays in the "worst, most severe way". Following protests from UK based Iraqi gay rights group, Sistani agreed to remove the fatwa from his website except for the section calling for the punishment of lesbianism.

As of October 2007, homosexual acts are punishable by death in seven countries that are all proximally close to each other:

• Iran
• Mauritania
• Nigeria
• Saudi Arabia
• Sudan
• United Arab Emirates
• Yemen

In Saudi Arabia, the maximum punishment for homosexuality is public execution, but the government will use other punishments—e.g., fines, jail time, and whipping—as alternatives, unless it feels that homosexuals are challenging state authority by engaging in LGBT social movements.

Iran is perhaps the nation to execute the largest number of its citizens for homosexuality. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iranian government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts. In Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, homosexuality went from a capital crime to one that it punished with fines and prison sentence.

Most international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, condemn laws that make homosexual relations between consenting adults a crime. Since 1994, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has also ruled that such laws violated the right to privacy guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

However, most Muslim nations insist that such laws are necessary to preserve Islamic morality and virtue. Of the nations with a majority of Muslim inhabitants, only Lebanon has an internal effort to legalize homosexuality.

See also: Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni

Extralegal violence

Private citizens have at times taken extralegal action to repress those alleged to be LGBT. In many parts of the world, including much of the EU and some jurisdictions in the United States, these acts may be legally classified as hate crimes, which increases the resulting penalty if convicted. Sometimes, people have been the target of anti-LGBT violence because they were perceived to be LGBT, whether they were or not.

Examples of extralegal violence

Acts of violence alleged or proven to have been inspired by hatred of LGBT people

1960s

• The beating by Los Angeles police in 1969 of J. McCann, a gay man. McCann later died of his injuries. A panel of coroners found his death an "excusable homicide".

1970s

• The arson of the The Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans on June 24, 1973, killing 32 people.
• The stabbing death of Robert Hillsborough in San Francisco on June 21, 1977 by a man shouting "faggot".
• On November 27, 1978, openly gay San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, along with Mayor George Moscone, was assassinated by political rival Dan White at San Francisco City Hall. Outrage over the assassinations and the short sentence given to White (seven years) prompted the White Night Riots.
• Tennessee Williams was the victim of an assault in January 1979 in Key West, being beaten by five teenage boys. He escaped serious injury. The episode was part of a spate of anti-gay violence inspired by an anti-gay newspaper ad run by a local Baptist minister.
• The beating death of Terry Knudsen by three men in Loring Park in Minneapolis on June 5, 1979.
• The beating death of Les Benscoter on June 15, 1979 in his St. Paul, Minnesota, apartment with the words, "fags will die" written in toothpaste on his furniture.
• The stabbing death of Robert Allen Taylor on September 7, 1979, near Loring Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A local reporter interviewed the murderer from jail and was told, "I don't like gays. Okay?"
• The beating death in New York City on October 7, 1979, of 17 year old Steven Charles of Newark by Costabile "Gus" Farace, Robert DeLicio, David Spoto and Farace's cousin Mark Granato. They also beat Charles' friend, 16 year old Thomas Moore of Brooklyn. Moore was critically injured but managed to get help at a nearby residence. It was Moore that identified the four men via a lineup four days after the incident. Farace, the leader of the attack, plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He was paroled after 8 years, in 1988. He himself was murdered on November 17, 1989.

1980s

• The beating of Rick Hunter and John Hanson by Minneapolis police outside the Y'all Come Back Saloon on January 1, 1982. Hennepin County Hospital emergency room staff employees testified in court that the police called the two men queers and sissies while the men were being treated for their injuries.
• The beating to death of Declan Flynn in Fairview Park, Dublin, in 1983. The murder and subsequent suspended sentences of the perpetrators who pleaded guilty to murder saw the emergence of a more vocal gay community in the aftermath.
• The drowning death of Charlie Howard in Bangor, Maine, in 1984.
• On May 13, 1988, Rebecca Wight was killed when she and her partner, Claudia Brenner, were shot by Stephen Roy Carr while hiking and camping along the Appalachian Trail. Carr later claimed that he became enraged by the couple's lesbianism when he saw them having sex

1990s

Matthew Shepard

Gay pub in Soho, London, UK. Nail bomb by BNP member in 1999 killed three people and maimed or injured at least 70

• The fatal stabbing of James Zappalorti (1945–1990), a gay Vietnam veteran.
• The murder of Julio Rivera in New York City on July 2, 1990, by two men who beat him with a hammer and stabbed him with a knife because he was gay.
• The killing of Paul Broussard (1968–1991), a Houston-area banker.
• The killing of an unknown homosexual man in Lillehammer, on August 21, 1992. The police investigation took about a year before Bård Faust, the drummer of the band Emporer, was tried and convicted of the killing. He was released from prison in 2002.
• The murder of U.S. Navy Petty Officer Allen Schindler by a shipmate who stomped him to death in a public restroom in Japan on October 27, 1992. Schindler had complained repeatedly about anti-gay harassment aboard ship. The case became synonymous with the gays in the military debate that had been brewing in the United States culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" bill.
• The 1993 rape and later murder of Brandon Teena, a transman who was killed when his birth gender was revealed by police to male friends of his. The events leading to Mr. Teena's death were depicted in the movie Boys Don't Cry.
• On March 9, 1995, Scott Amedure was murdered after revealing his attraction to his friend Jonathan Schmitz on a The Jenny Jones Show episode about secret crushes. Schmidtz purchased a shotgun to kill Amedure and did so after Amedure implied he still was attracted to him; Schmitz then turned himself in to police.
• The murders of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, a lesbian couple in Medford, Oregon, on December 4, 1995, by a man who said he had "no compassion" for bisexual or homosexual people. Robert Acremant was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
• The bombing of the Otherside Lounge, a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta, by Eric Robert Rudolph, the "Olympic Park Bomber," on February 21, 1997; five bar patrons were injured. In a statement released after he was sentenced to five consecutive life terms for his several bombings, Rudolph called homosexuality an "aberrant lifestyle".
• On February 28, 1997, Robyn Brown, a 23-year-old transsexual prostitute, was found stabbed to death in her flat in London. Her killer, James Hopkins, was not caught until over ten years later, and in January 2009 was jailed for life.
• The October 7, 1998, fatal attack on Matthew Shepard (1976–1998), a gay student, in Laramie, Wyoming. Shepard was tortured, beaten severely, tied to a fence, and abandoned; he was found 18 hours after the attack and succumbed to his injuries less than a week later, on October 12. His attackers, Russell Arthur Henderson and Aaron James McKinney, are both serving two consecutive life sentences in prison.
• The murder in Wellington, New Zealand, on May 8, 1999, of supposedly gay teenager Jeff Whittington, who was beaten, kicked, and stomped to death by two men who reportedly later boasted of beating up a "faggot". Whittington's attackers, Jason Morris Meads and Stephen James Smith, were sentenced to life in prison.
• In May 1999, the Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in Soho was bombed by British National Party member David Copeland, killing three people and wounding at least 70.
• The July 1, 1999, murders of gay couple Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder by white supremacist brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams in Redding, California. Tyler Williams was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years in prison, to be served after his completion of a 21-year sentence for firebombing synagogues and an abortion clinic. Benjamin Williams claimed that by killing the couple he was "obeying the laws of the Creator". He committed suicide in 2003 while awaiting trial. Their former pastor described the brothers as "zealous in their faith" but "far from kooks".
• The murder of U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell on July 6, 1999, in Fort Campbell, Kentucky by fellow soldier Calvin Glover. Winchell was beaten to death with a baseball bat after rumors spread on base of his relationship with transgendered author Calpernia Addams. Glover was sentenced to life in prison.
• The September 1999 murder of Steen Fenrich, apparently by his stepfather, john D. Fenrich, in Queens, New York. His dismembered remains were found in March 2001, with the phrase "gay nigger number one" scrawled on his skull along with his social security number. His stepfather fled from police while being interviewed, then committed suicide.
• In November 1999, Blah Bar, a gay bar in Cape Town, South Africa, was bombed, injuring two people.

2000-2005

The knight von Hohenberg and his squire, being burned at the stake for sodomy, Zurich 1482 (Zurich Central Library)

• The murder of Jamie Ray Tolbert at age 24 on January 1, 2000. Tolbert was at a gay bar in Biloxi, Mississippi celebrating New Year's Eve. His killers, Brent David Kabat, 19, and Jeremy Shawn Bentley, 22, both of North Carolina, made Tolbert get into his vehicle and drive them across the state line into Alabama, where they beat and murdered him by strangulation and then tossed his body in the woods near Grand Bay, Alabama. After being tracked across the country thanks to their use of Tolbert's credit card, Kabat and Bentley were arrested 2 weeks later at a roadblock in Yreka, California. They were still driving Tolbert's Nissan Xterra. They told authorities the location of Tolbert's body.
• On July 3, 2000, in Grant Town, West Virginia, Arthur "J.R." Warren was punched and kicked to death by two teenage boys who reportedly believed Warren had spread a rumor that he and one of the boys, David Allen Parker, had a sexual relationship. Warren's killers ran over his body to disguise the murder as a hit-and-run. Parker pleaded guilty and was sentenced to "life in prison with mercy", making him eligible for parole after 15 years. His accomplice, Jared Wilson, was sentenced to 20 years.
• On September 22, 2000, Ronald Gay entered a gay bar in Roanoke, Virginia and opened fire on the patrons, killing Danny Overstreet, 43 years old, and severely injuring six others. Ronald said he was angry over what his name now meant, and deeply upset that three of his sons had changed their surname. He claimed that he had been told by God to find and kill lesbians and gay men, describing himself as a "Christian Soldier working for my Lord;" Gay testified in court that "he wished he could have killed more fags," before several of the shooting victims as well as Danny Overstreet's family and friends.
• On November 17, 2001, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Aaron Webster, a gay man, was beaten to death with baseball bats and pool cues in a part of Stanley Park known for cruising. Ryan Cran, along with two unidentified youths, was convicted of manslaughter in Webster's death. Cran was paroled in February 2009 after serving four years of a six-year sentence.
• On June 16, 2001, Fred Martinez, a transgender student was bludgeoned to death near Cortez, Colorado by 18-year-old Shaun Murphy, who reportedly bragged about attacking a "fag".
• On June 30, 2001, hundreds of Serbian nationalists, skinheads, and soccer hooligans attacked participants of the first Serbian Pride Parade in Belgrade.
• On June 12, 2002, Philip Walsted, a gay man, was fatally beaten with a baseball bat. According to prosecutors, the neo-Nazi views of Walsted's assailant's, David Higdon, led to what was originally a robbery escalating to murder. Higdon was sentenced to life in prison, plus an additional sentence for robbery.
• The December 2002 homicide of Nizah Morris, a transwoman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• The non-fatal stabbing of Bertrand Delanoë, the openly gay mayor of Paris, in October 2002.
• The killing of Gwen Araujo(1985– 2002), a transwoman, by at least three men who were charged with committing a hate crime. Two were convicted of murder, the third manslaughter; however, the jury rejected the hate crime enhancement.
• On May 11, 2003, Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old lesbian, was murdered in a hate crime in Newark, New Jersey. While waiting for a bus, Gunn and her friends were propositioned by two men. When the girls rejected their advances, declaring themselves to be lesbians, the men attacked them. One of the men, Richard McCullough, fatally stabbed Gunn. In exchange for his pleading guilty to several lesser crimes including aggravated manslaughter, prosecutors dropped murder charges against McCullough, who was sentenced to 20 years.
• On June 17, 2003, Richie Phillips of Elizabethtown, Kentucky was killed by Joseph Cottrell. His body was later found in a suitcase in Rough River Lake. During his trial, two of Cottrell's relatives testified that he lured Phillips to his death, and killed him because he was gay. Cottrell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
• On July 23, 2003, Nireah Johnson and Brandie Coleman were shot to death by Paul Moore, when Moore learned after a sexual encounter that Johnson was transgender. Moore then burned his victims' bodies. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 120 years in prison.
• On July 31, 2003, 37-year-old Glenn Kopitske was shot and stabbed in the back by 17-year-old Gary Hirte, a straight-A student, star athlete and Eagle Scout, in Winnebago County, Wisconsin. Prosecutors contended that Hirte murdered Kopitske to see if he could get away with it. Hirte pleaded insanity, claiming he killed Kopitske in a murderous rage after a consensual sexual encounter with the victim, because he felt a homosexual act was "worse than murder". The 'temporary insanity' mitigation plea was not upheld, he was found guilty, and received a life sentence.
• On June 5, 2004, Jamaican gay rights activist Brian Williamson was murdered in Kingston. His killer, Dwight Hayden, who used a machete to stab and chop him some 70 times, pleaded guilty and received a life sentence.
• On September 28, 2004, Sierra Leonean gay and lesbian rights activist FannyAnn Eddy was raped and murdered while working in her Freetown office. Police ruled the attack unrelated to Eddy's activism. Her alleged attacker escaped from police custody and has not been prosecuted.
• On October 2, 2004, multiple assailants in Waverly, Ohio, attacked Daniel Fetty, a gay man who was hearing-impaired and homeless. Fetty was beaten, stomped, shoved nude into a garbage bin, impaled with a stick, and left for dead; he succumbed to his injuries the next day. Prosecuters alleged a hate crime. Three men received sentences ranging from seven years to life.
• On January 28, 2005, Ronnie Antonio Paris, a three-year-old boy living in Tampa, Florida, died due to brain injuries inflicted by his father, Ronnie Paris, Jr. According to his mother and other relatives, Ronnie Paris, Jr., repeatedly slammed his son into walls, slapped the child's head, and "boxed" him because he was concerned the child was gay and feared his son would grow up a sissy. Paris, Jr., was sentenced to thirty years in prison.
• On February 27, 2005, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 21-year-old James Maestas was assaulted outside a restaurant, then followed to a hotel and beaten unconscious by men who called him "faggot" during the attack. Although all of his attackers were charged with committing a hate crime, none was sentenced to prison.
• On March 11, 2005, Jason Gage, an openly gay man, was murdered in his Waterloo, Iowa, apartment by an assailant, Joseph Lawrence, who claimed Gage had made sexual advance to him. Gage was bludgeoned to death with a bottle, and stabbed in the neck, probably post-mortem, with a shard of glass. Lawrence was sentenced to fifty years in prison.
• On June 30, 2005, Yishai Shlisel, a Haredi Jew, was charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing three marchers in a gay pride parade in Jerusalem, Israel, claiming he acted "in the name of God".
• In July 2005, Lauren Harries, a transwoman, was attacked along with her father and brother in their home in Cardiff by eight youths who shouted the word "tranny"—a term of abuse associated with hate crime—while beating their victims. One youth pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to two years probation; his accomplices were not formally identified or charged.
• On October 14, 2005, Jody Dobrowski was punched and kicked to death in London by two men who perceived him as being gay. His two murderers were sentenced to life in prison.
• In December 2005, a Jamaican mob chased an alleged gay man who, fearful of the crowd, jumped into the water and drowned.

2005–present

John Atherton, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, was hanged for sodomy under a law that he had helped to institute. His lover was John Childe, his steward and tithe proctor, also hanged. Anonymous pamphlet, 1641.

• On January 13, 2006, Julio Anderson Luciano and his fiancé, Isaac Ali Dani Peréz Triviño, were killed in the home they shared with Peréz Triviño's mother in the Spanish city of Vigo. Jacobo Piñeiro Rial, who stabbed them 22 and 35 times, respectively, then set fire to the home, was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for arson after being acquitted by a jury of murder charges on a "gay panic" defence.
• In February 2006, Gisberta Salce Júnior, a Brazilian transsexual living in Oporto, Portugal, was tortured and raped with sticks over a period of three days, then tossed into a water-filled pit and left to die. A group of adolescent boys admitted to the attack and received suspended sentences.
• On February 2, 2006, 18-year-old Jacob D. Robida entered a bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts, confirmed that it was a gay bar, and then attacked patrons with a hatchet and a handgun, wounding three. He fatally shot himself three days later.
• In April 2006, students rioted at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica and attacked an alleged gay student.
• On April 6, 2006, two American television producers, CBS Evening News senior producer Richard Jefferson and 48 Hours producer-researcher Ryan Smith, were severely beaten with a tire iron outside the Sunset Beach Bar on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. Three men and one woman were convicted and sentenced to prison for the attack, which was ruled a hate crime.
• On June 10, 2006, Kevin Aviance, a female impressionist, musician, and fashion designer, was robbed and beaten in Manhattan by a group of men who yelled anti-gay slurs at him. Four assailants pleaded guilty and received prison sentences.
• On July 30, 2006, six men were attacked with baseball bats and knives after leaving the San Diego, California Gay Pride festival. One victim was injured so severely that he had to undergo extensive facial reconstructive surgery. Three men pleaded guilty in connection with the attacks and received prison sentences. A 15-year-old juvenile also pleaded guilty.
• On August 18, 2006, an altercation occurred in Manhattan between a man and seven black lesbians from Newark, New Jersey. During the altercation, the man was stabbed. The women claim that they acted in self-defense after he screamed homophobic epithets, spit on them, and pulled one of their weaves off, while he has described the attack as "a hate crime against a straight man."
• On October 8, 2006, Michael Sandy was attacked by four young heterosexual men who lured him into meeting after chatting online, while they were looking for gay men to rob. He was struck by a car while trying to escape his attackers, and died five days later without regaining consciousness.
• On February 14, 2007, a group of gay men, including gay-rights activist Gareth Williams, were stoned by a mob in Mandeville, Jamaica. Their attackers reportedly had earlier demanded that the men leave the community.
• On February 27, 2007 in Detroit, Michigan Andrew Anthos, a 72-year-old disabled gay man was beaten with a lead pipe by a man who was shouting anti-gay names at him. Anthos died 10 days later in the hospital.
• On March 15, 2007 in Wahneta, Florida, Ryan Keith Skipper, a 25 year old gay man was stabbed to death. Four suspects were arrested for the crime. The Sheriff is calling it a hate crime.
• On April 8, 2007, approximately 100 men gathered outside a church where 150 people were attending the funeral of a gay man in Mandeville, Jamaica. According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, “We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we’re going to kill you. We don’t want no battyman buried here in Mandeville.”
• On May 12, 2007, Roberto Duncanson was murdered in Brooklyn, New York. He was stabbed to death by Omar Willock, who claimed Duncanson had flirted with him.
• May 16, 2007, Sean William Kennedy, 20, was walking to his car from Brew's Bar in Greenville, SC when Andrew Moller, 18, got out of another car and approached Kennedy. Investigators said that Moller made a comment about Kennedy's sexual orientation, and threw a fatal punch because he didn't like another man's sexual preference.
• On May 29, 2007, Michael Marcil, better known as drag queen Dixie Landers was beaten outside of an Ottawa, Ontario gay pub. Andrew Lefebvre and Sheri-Lee Rand have been charged for the attack.
• On July 7, 2007, 30 participants at a gay pride event in Croatia were attacked by multiple assailants. The attackers had also prepared Molotov cocktails but were stopped by the police before using them. Many people taking part in Gay Pride marches in Eastern Europe (e.g: Romania, Russia, Serbia) have been beaten after leaving the marches.
• In September 2007, Osvan Inacio dos Santos, 19, was attacked and murdered in a street near a bar where he had just won the local "Miss Gay" competition in the town of Batingas in northeast Brazil. dos Santos' naked body was found on Sunday morning and forensic examination found his skull had been fractured and indicated sexual assault.
• On December 3, 2007, Craig Gee was attacked by four men whilst holding his boyfriend's hand walking down Crown Street in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia. Part of his skull was reduced to powder and his leg was broken during the attack. This incident prompted a vigil against the rising level of homophobia in the city and alleged apathy from police,, and despite the attack, Gee and his boyfriend joined the Chief of Parade Margaret Cho to lead the 2008 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.
• On December 8, 2007 25 year old gay man Nathaniel Salerno was attacked by four men on a Metro train in Washington, DC. The men called him faggot while they beat him.
• In January, 2008, three gay men were attacked in the privacy of their dwelling by an angry mob who had days before threatened them if they did not leave the community in Mandeville, Jamaica. According to reports, two men were hospitalised, one with serious injuries, while another man is still missing and feared dead.
• In February 2008, Brazilian gay rights activist Alexandre Peixe dos Santos was attacked and beaten at the Sao Paulo's Gay Pride Association offices in Brazil. Activists estimate that more than 2,680 gay people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2006.
• In February 2008, transsexual Duanna Johnson was beaten by a police officer while she was held in the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Tennessee. Johnson said the officers reportedly called her a “faggot” and “he-she,” before and during the incident. In November 2008, she was found dead in the street, reportedly gunned down by three unknown individuals.
• On February 12, 2008, Lawrence "Larry" King, a 15 year old junior highschool student was shot by a classmate at E.O. Green School in Oxnard, California. He was taken off life support after doctors declared him brain dead on February 15. According to Associated Press reports, "prosecutors have charged a 14-year-old classmate with premeditated murder with hate-crime and firearm-use enhancements".
• In Rochester, New York on March 16, 2008 police say Lance Neve was beaten unconscious because Neve was gay. A man attacked Neve at a bar leaving him with a fractured skull, and a broken nose. Jesse Parsons was sentenced to more than five years in prison for the assault.
• In Baltimore County, Maryland on May 29, 2008 eighteen year old Steven Parrish—a member of the Young Swans subgroup of the Bloods—was murdered by Steven T. Hollis III and Juan L. Flythe after they found "gay messages" on his cell phone. They felt having a gay member would make their gang appear weak and that by killing Parrish they could prevent that perception.
• 17 July 2008, In Colorado, 18 year old Angie Zapata was beaten to death two days after meeting Allen Ray Andrade. The case was prosecuted as a hate crime, and Andrade was found guilty of first degree murder on April 22 2009.
• 25 July 2008, 18 year old Michael Causer was attacked by a group of men at a party in Liverpool, England He later died from his injuries. It is alleged that he was killed because he was gay. The case continues.
• September 7, 2008 - Tony Randolph Hunter, 27, and his partner were attacked and beaten near a gay bar in Washington DC. Hunter later died from his injuries on September 18. Police are investigating it as a possible hate crime.
• September 13, 2008 in Denver, Colorado 26 year old Nima Daivari was attacked by a man who called him faggot. The police that arrived on the scene refused to make a report of the attack.
• September 15, 2008 - A Bourbonnais, Illinois elementary school bus driver was charged with leading a homophobic attack on a 10-year old student passenger. The boy was taunted by the driver who then encouraged other students to chase and beat the child.
• October 23, 2008 - 23 year-old gay hairdresser, Daniel Jenkinson, was left covered in blood after a homophobic attack in a Preston club. His attacker – Neil Bibby, 22, of Bramble Court, Penwortham, Preston – was sentenced to 200 hours' unpaid work, a three-month weekend curfew, and ordered to pay £2,000 compensation by Preston Magistrates after he pleaded guilty to assault. Daniel was left needing facial reconstruction surgery and is "now frightened to go out in the city".
• November 3, 2008 - Anji Dimitriou and Jane Currie were physically assaulted at an Oshawa, Ontario public school, while waiting to pick up their children. Mark Scott, the attacker, punched both women in the face, referring to them as "men," "fucking dyke bitches" and spitting in Dimitriou's face. He is in court in Jan. 2009, for two counts of assault causing bodily harm.
• On November 7, 2008 in Newton, NC the home of openly gay Melvin Whistlehunt was destroyed by arsonists. Investigators found homophobic graffiti spray painted on the back of the house.
• On November 14, 2008, transwoman Lateisha Green was shot and killed in Syracuse, NY because the alleged perpetrator thought she was gay. Local news media reported the incident with her legal name, Moses "Teish" Cannon.
• On December 7, 2008 Romel Sucuzhanya, a 31 year old straight Equadorean and his brother Jose, were attacked on a Brooklyn, New York street for appearing to be gay and for being Hispanic; they were walking arm-in-arm, which is normal for brothers in their culture. Romel later died from his injuries.
• On December 12, 2008 in Richmond, California a 28 year old lesbian was kidnapped and gang raped by four men who made homophobic remarks during the attack.
• On December 16, 2008 in Washington, DC Durval Martins, 35, was shot in the head and killed while walking home from a local gay bar. Police said Martins’ cell phone, cash, credit cards and jewelry were still in his possession.
• on December 26, 2008 in Indianapolis, Indiana, Avery Elzy and Michael Hunt, a gay couple, were killed in their home along with one of their three dogs. A twenty year old man, Christopher Conwell, was arrested on 31 December and admitted to the murders two weeks later.
• On December 27, 2008 in Dayton, Ohio 24 year old Nathan Runkle was brutally assaulted outside a gay nightclub.
• On February 15, 2009 in New York City Efosa Agbontaen and Branden McGillvery-Dummett were attacked by four young men with glass bottles and box cutters who used anti-gay slurs during the attack. Agbontaen and McGillvery-Dummett both required emergency room treatment for their injuries.
• On February 18, 2009 two men were arrested in Stroudsburg, PA for the stabbing death of gay veteran Michael Goucher.
• On March 1, 2009 in Galveston, Texas three men entered Roberts Lafitte bar and attacked patrons with rocks. One of the victims, Marc Bosaw, was sent to the emergency room to have twelve staples in his head.
• On March 3, 2009 in Bickley, in the London Borough of Bromley 59 year old Gerry Edwards was stabbed to death by an assailant shouting homophobic abuse. His partner of over two decades, 56 year old Chris Bevan, was also stabbed and was left in a critical condition in hospital.
• On March 14, 2009 a gay couple leaving a concert in Newark, New Jersey were attacked by 15 teens. Josh Kehoe and Bobby Daniel Caldwell were called "faggots" and beaten. Caldwell suffered a broken jaw.
• On March 23, 2009 in Seaside, Oregon two gay men were attacked and left lying unconscious on a local beach. The men regained consciousness and were treated at a nearby hospital.
• On Monday, April 6, 2009, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11 year old boy in Springfield, Massachusetts, hanged himself with an extension cord after being bullied all school year by his peers. His peers said he "acted feminine" and was gay. He would have turned 12 on April 17, 2009, the same day of the National Day of Silence.
• On Saturday April 11, 2009 a gay man in Gloucester, Massachusetts was attacked and beaten by as many as six people outside a bar. Justin Goodwin, 36, of Salem suffered a shattered jaw, broken eye socket, broken nose and broken cheek bone.

See also

• Anti-gay slogan
• Biphobia
• Gay panic defense
• Hate crime
• Hate speech
• Heterosexism
• Homophobia
• Lesbophobia
• Murder Music
• Pink Pistols
• Transphobia
• List of unlawfully killed transgender people

External links

• Barry Yeoman, Murder on the Mountain, Out Magazine
• Gay Bashings In Schools- A survey released in 2006 shows that gay teens still experience homophobic attacks in their schools
• Pictures from Belgrade (Serbian) Pride Parade 30 June 2001