HATE CRIMES Archives

UK Research: Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate and Rising Trends

04/11/2025 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Hate Crime Statistics die Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate and Rising Trends

The data on UK hate crimes presents a complex picture. Recent official statistics show a 2% decrease in sexual orientation-related hate crimes (from 19,127 to 18,702) and an 11% decrease in transgender identity-related crimes (from 4,258 to 3,809) in 2024/25. However, advocacy groups caution that these figures don’t tell the full story.

The statistics exclude Metropolitan Police data due to reporting changes, which significantly affect LGBTQ+ data, given that many LGBTQ+ people live in London. Additionally, over the past five years, hate crimes based on sexual orientation have risen by around 44% and those based on trans identity have nearly doubled at 88%.

LGBTQ+ hate crime charity Galop saw a 60% increase in LGBTQ+ hate crime victims coming to them for support in 2024, suggesting the official figures underestimate the true scale of the problem. Fewer than one in ten LGBTQ+ people report hate crimes or incidents to police, with half feeling the police wouldn’t do anything.

The Supreme Court Ruling

In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of woman under the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex assigned at birth. The case originated from a challenge by For Women Scotland to Scottish legislation requiring 50% of public board members to be women, which included transgender women with gender recognition certificates.

The ruling determined that interpreting ‘sex’ as certificated sex would cut across the definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in an incoherent way, and that transgender women could be excluded from same-sex facilities such as changing rooms if proportionate.

Many LGBTQ+ people are living in fear following the Supreme Court judgment, according to advocacy groups, though this period doesn’t fall within the most recent hate crime statistics. The ruling effectively forced trans people to use sex-segregated public services and facilities according to their sex-assigned at birth, contrary to their identity and appearance.

Reform UK’s Growing Influence

Reform UK’s manifesto pledges to ban “transgender ideology” in primary and secondary schools, with no gender questioning, social transitioning or pronoun swapping, and mandates single-sex facilities in schools. The party also states it will scrap the 2010 Equality Act and eliminate diversity, equality and inclusion roles.

69% of Reform UK voters believe that trans people should not be able to legally change their gender via a gender recognition certificate, though 65% still believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. The 10 English councils now controlled by Reform have banned the flying of Pride flags, limiting flagpoles to the Union Jack and regional emblems.

Reform UK’s electoral threat has pushed both Conservative and Labour parties to adopt more conservative positions on gender self-identification and transgender rights, framing these policies around safeguarding concerns for cisgender women and children.

Online Harassment and Platform Safety

GLAAD’s 2025 Social Media Safety Index found that platforms broadly under-moderated anti-LBGTQ+ hate content while over-moderating LGBTQ+ users, including taking down hashtags containing phrases such as queer, trans and non-binary. In the UK, coordinated far-right and Christian extremist online campaigns have targeted Pride events with fabricated claims that they are “sexualising public spaces,” with these narratives emboldening physical protests and attacks such as those witnessed at London Pride in 2024.

Two in five LGBTQ+ young people, including 58% of trans young people, have been targets of homophobic, biphobic or transphobic online abuse, while nearly all (97%) have witnessed it. Less than half of LGBTQ+ victims of online abuse reported their experiences to social media platforms, and less than one in ten reported to police.

School Bullying

A 2024 YouGov poll found that 47% of LGBTQ+ youth in the UK have been bullied or discriminated against at school or university because of their sexual orientation, and 25% faced bullying due to their gender identity. Half of those who experienced bullying never reported it, and of those who did report it to staff, more than seven in ten said staff responded badly.

Respondents reported being locked in toilets, kicked, verbally and sexually abused, with some being driven to suicidal thoughts, while others complained of teachers purposefully misgendering and mocking them in classrooms. 43% of LGBT+ school students have been bullied compared to 21% of non-LGBT+ students.

Conclusion

The research confirms the article’s themes for the UK context: rising anti-LBGTQ+ sentiment manifesting in hate crimes, discriminatory political developments like the Supreme Court ruling, the growing influence of anti-trans political parties like Reform UK, widespread online harassment, and persistent bullying in schools. While official hate crime statistics show recent decreases, the broader five-year trend shows significant increases, and underreporting remains a major issue.

Links:

#LGBTQRights #TransRights #HateCrimes #UKPOLITICS #QueerRights #EndTransphobia #EndHomophobia #ProtectTransYouth #Equality #HumanRights #LGBTQSafety #UKNews #StandWithLGBTQ

LGBT people are subjected to hate crimes ‘on daily basis’ in UK rural communities

23/06/2015 By ACOMSDave 1 Comment

The Independent – James Cusick – Tuesday 23 June 2015

Survey reveals that eight in 10 have been verbally abused or harassed, with one in 10 suffering physical assault

The portrayal of the “only gay in the village” as a tolerated and integrated minority, masks a far harsher reality for Britain’s LGBT community who are subjected to everyday bullying including verbal abuse, discrimination and criminal damage to their property, according to a new report.
The study reveals that hate crime, especially in small rural communities, is often a daily occurrence for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
However high levels of under-reporting – out of fear that police will not treat incidents seriously, or that they will be “outed” to families – is leaving vulnerable victims lonely and isolated.
The report by the University of Leicester’s Centre for Hate Studies estimated that 35,000 cases of hate crime against LGBT people fell below the radar of official crime figures.
The report’s author, Dr Stevie-Jade Hardy, paints a picture of intolerance far removed from the BBC TV Little Britain comedy character, Daffyd Thomas, played by Matt Lucas.
Dr Hardy said that the individuals who contributed to the study described being “targeted by young people” in their area, being verbally abused with derogatory names shouted in the street and their homes daubed with offensive graffiti.

She said : “If something was done about it, then sometimes the instances got worse and the targeting levels increased.”
According to the study, LGBT people who were “noticeably different” and living in small rural communities, were more likely to be the victims of hate crime.
Of those who were interviewed at length for the study, 88 per cent reported being victimised. The national figures highlighted in the report showed only 4,267 incidents being recorded by police in 2012-13. The most recent Crime Survey [for England and Wales] showed 39,000 homophobic hate incidents over the same timeframe.
The survey reveals that eight in 10 LGBT people have been verbally abused or harassed, with one in 10 suffering physical assault.
Additional evidence suggested that although victims of transphobia [intense prejudice against transsexual or transgender people] could be targeted up to 50 times a year, only three in 10 individuals bothered to report what had happened to them.
The Leicester study lists the “normalisation” of hate crime, concerns about wasting police time, and “negative experience” of police involvement, including being “outed” without permission, as potential reasons for the substantial under-reporting.
Dr Hardy said her research alongside previous studies had shown a targeted minority who were often scared to go out, scared to reveal their identity and were suffering both emotionally and physically from the impact of hate crimes.
The publication of the new study has been co-ordinated with the launch of new campaign to combat the high incidence of LGBT hate crime and to raise awareness of victimisation.

Matt Lucas as “the only gay in the village”, Daffyd Thomas in BBC’s Little Britain (Rex)
The campaign is being supported by the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Welsh Government and the Crown Office Scotland and is being co-ordinated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
It is aim is to encourage equality and diversity, eliminate unlawful discrimination, and to protect and promote human rights.
Commenting on the UK campaign which carries the message “Recognise it, Report it”, the deputy chairwoman of the EHRC, Caroline Waters, said “It is a tragedy that there is a still a backdrop of intolerance and abuse which stays largely hidden from society.”
Paul Roberts, the chief executive of the LGBT Consortium, which assists voluntary and community organisations in providing support and services, said LGBT communities were already working with the police to help break down barriers. He added : “But too often LGBT people don’t know they are experiencing hate crime or just shrug it off. Our message today is – recognise it, report it and get support when you need it.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lgbt-people-subjected-to-hate-crimes-on-daily-basis-in-uk-rural-communities-10337452.html

17 Years After Matthew Shepard’s Murder, Laramie Passes LGBT Protections

15/05/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

The city became the first in Wyoming to adopt an LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination law.

Reprinted from the Advoate – BY TRUDY RING

MAY 14 2015 4:45 PM ET

In 1998 gay college student Matthew Shepard as brutally beaten and left for dead on a fence like this one near Laramie.

The town where Matthew Shepard became the victim of a deadly antigay hate crime in 1998 — Laramie, Wyo., — has become the first municipality in the state to adopt an LGBT-inclusive antidiscrimination law.
The Laramie City Council passed the ordinance last night by a vote of 7-2, the Associated Press reports. It bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, and public accommodations, and it sets up a process for filing discrimination complaints, which the city will then investigate. The ordinance will go into effect by the end of this month.
“What a day for Wyoming, and what a day for the city that became synonymous with Matthew Shepard’s murder to now step up and do this right thing,” Jeran Artery, head of the LGBT rights group Wyoming Equality, told the AP. “And I would really encourage other communities across the state to follow Laramie’s lead.”
Efforts to enact a similar law on a statewide basis have failed repeatedly, most recently inFebruary. “I’m thrilled that Laramie’s [adopting an antidiscrimination law], at the same time sort of saddened that the state of Wyoming can’t see fit to do that as well,” Judy Shepard, Matthew’s mother, told the AP. “Maybe the rest of Wyoming will understand this is about fellow human beings and not something that’s other than what they are.”
Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, was beaten and left for dead on a fence on the outskirts of town by two men he met in a bar. He died a few days later at a hospital in Colorado. His death became a rallying point for LGBT rights activists, and federal hate-crimes law bears his name as well as that of James Byrd Jr., an African-American murdered in a racially motivated attack in Texas, also in 1998.
Judy Shepard, a longtime Wyoming resident, said her son’s murder doesn’t indicate that Wyoming residents are generally homophobic, but acting more quickly on hate-crimes law could have improved the state’s reputation. “I feel like if Wyoming had done more to open the door to acceptance, that kind of reputation would have disappeared very quickly,” she told the AP. “Instead of taking advantage of the moment, they just sort of turned around and ran.”
State Rep. Kendall Kroeker, who voted against the statewide antidiscrimination bill, objected to the crime being brought into the discussion. “The Matt Shepard case was a tragedy, but I don’t see how an antidiscrimination ordinance would have stopped somebody from committing that heinous crime,” he told the news service. Kroeker was also one of several Wyoming legislators who signed onto a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject marriage equality, claiming it would interfere with citizens’ free speech rights.
The two Laramie council members who voted against the local antidiscrimination ordinance said they worried it would interfere with religious freedom, the AP reports. “Enactment of this ordinance will result in discrimination complaints filed against business owners who are simply trying to run their business consistent with their faith,” said one of them, Joe Vitale.