by Siyeon Park
There have been countless crimes against the LGBTQ+community, some even dating back decades ago. They have been increasing more and more throughout the years. For example, in 2016, there were 1076 cases of reported crimes against the community, but in 2019 the numbers rose up to 1195 cases.
The LGBTQ+ community is made up of people who have different sexualities and sexual orientations. The name LGBTQ+ represent lesbian(woman loves woman, wlw), gay(man loves man, mlm), bisexual(attraction to both women and men), transgender(those whose gender at birth is different to their current gender) and the + for many more sexualities and gender orientation. These people are hated for the fact they do not fit the stereotypical expectation that someone has to be attracted to the opposite gender or how their genders are different to their gender at birth.
There has been at least 24 cases of transgender, non-binary and people without comforming genders who have been killed and fatally injured. These crimes do not get represented well in the media and most hate crimes similar to these get ignored and unnoticed. In 2020, a total of 44 fatalities were recorded by the HRC(Humans Rights Campaign), making 2020 the year with the most hate crimes since they began recording the crimes in 2013.
Another example of LGBTQ+ people being treated differently can be found in a research conducted by Lambda Warsaw, a Polish LGBTQ+ organisation. The organisation asked respondents in 10 EU states to evaluate how they would react by intervening directly or calling for help if they saw LGBTQ+ people being pushed and slapped on the streets by a stranger. They were also asked if they would do the same for someone with a disability, a person of race and a ‘normal’ person. The results were like so;
As shown, the rates of the LGBTQ+ people being helped were lower than the others. In this group, lesbians were the most likely to be helped with 7.38 out of 10, but the probability of intervention for transgender and gay people were 6.84 and 6.93 out of 10, making it a lot lower.
Even if someone isn’t directly harming or using violence, they could still cause harm by mentally affecting the community. Even small things like stereotyping them and making homophobic comments. Recently, a lot of people have been hating on the LGBTQ+ community because it is ‘going against God’s words’ and ‘sinning’. Some even go to LGBTQ+ events like Pride and shout homophobic messages and hold up anti-LGBTQ+ signs.
The rates of LGBTQ+hate crimes have been rising over the years and we don’t have a clear way of finding out when they will stop. Hopefully, these crimes will stop soon and people will learn to accept others for being who they naturally are.
Yeoksam Times 
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