LGBTQ+ visibility Archives

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

Review: The Letter Men – A Quiet Masterpiece of Queer Remembrance

It’s not every day that a story finds you — especially one as moving and improbable as that of The Letter Men. But that’s precisely what happened to director Andy Vallentine. In his own words, he stumbled across the love story of Gilbert Bradley and Gordon Bowsher while scrolling online, yet what followed was no casual discovery. It became a deeply personal pilgrimage to honour lives lived in secret, with love expressed in ink but forbidden in the flesh.

…No conception of what our love is…

…How far away we seem from the rest of the world…

Gilbert Bradley kept Gordon’s letters until he died in 2007, and they were then rediscovered in 2015. bringing their love story to light.

Based on the largest surviving collection of queer love letters from the Second World War, The Letter Men does more than dramatise a historical romance. It gives voice to the silenced — not in anger, but in reverence. Vallentine’s Director’s Statement reveals not only the historical weight of the story but also the emotional and ethical responsibility he felt in telling it. This isn’t opportunistic filmmaking; it’s stewardship.

The casting of Garrett Clayton as Gilbert and Matthew Postlethwaite as Gordon brings authenticity and tenderness to roles that could so easily have slipped into caricature. But under Vallentine’s hand, every gesture, glance, and silence feels earned. This is a film about longing — not just the yearning between two men separated by war, but the aching for recognition, dignity, and permanence in a world determined to forget them. The Letter Men

It’s also a visually rich experience. Oren Soffer’s cinematography is painterly, with the production and costume design capturing 1940s England not in sepia-toned nostalgia, but with a lived-in texture. Even the visual effects — subtle as they are — seem to serve the memory of these men, never overshadowing the human drama at the core.

What struck me most, however, wasn’t the historical significance — which is undeniable — but the contemporary resonance. As Vallentine notes, telling diverse, underrepresented stories is not just a moral imperative, but the very reason for making art at all. In a cultural moment where LGBTQ+ histories are still at risk of erasure or dismissal, The Letter Men becomes more than a film. It becomes testimony.

It’s a rare thing to watch a director so transparently moved by his subject and so determined to let it speak for itself. Andy Vallentine doesn’t just tell Gilbert and Gordon’s story; he listens to it. That humility, that attentiveness, is what elevates this short film into something unforgettable.

In the end, The Letter Men isn’t only about love letters. It is a love letter — to the past, to the possibility of queer futures, and to all those who wrote their truths down in hope, never knowing if anyone would ever read them.

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