The Senate side of the U.S. Capitol building – Photo: Scrumshus, via Wikimedia.
A pair of congressional lawmakers from Massachusetts have introduced a bill that would ban the use of “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses in federal court.
The Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act, sponsored by Sen. Edward Markey (D) and Congressman Joseph Kennedy III (D), would prevent defendants from attempting to use a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity as justification for violent crimes, including murder and assault.
The bills would also require the Attorney General submit an annual report to Congress detailing prosecutions in federal court involving crimes committed against the LGBTQ+ community that were motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Typically, gay and trans panic defenses paint LGBTQ people as sexual predators preying on straight victims, or argue that defendants are not responsible for their actions because mere knowledge of the victim’s identity provoked them and made them act in an irrational manner.
Such defenses have been employed — though not always successfully — in many high-profile hate crimes or murders, including the killings of Matthew Shepard, the openly gay college student killed in Laramie, Wyo., in 1998; Gwen Araujo, a transgender teenager killed in 2002; Ahmed Dabarran, a gay assistant district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., in 2003; and Angie Zapata, a transgender woman killed in Colorado in 2008, among others.
“Claiming a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity justify murder or assault expressly tells entire segments of our society that their lives are not worthy of protection,” Kennedy said in a statement. “As long as gay and trans panic defenses are allowed in our state and federal courts, the LGBTQ community will be deprived of the justice all Americans deserve. With four states already implementing bans, we have the federal momentum to outlaw this bigoted legal practice across the country.”
The four states that currently outlaw the use of gay and trans panic defenses are: California, Illinois, Nevada, and Rhode Island. Bills seeking to prohibit the defense tactic have been introduced but stymied by legislative inaction in New Jersey, Washington, New York, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Maine, Texas, New Mexico, Connecticut, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia.
“Our courtrooms are supposed to be chambers of justice, not hate,” Markey said in a statement. “So-called gay and trans panic legal defenses perpetuate bigotry and violence toward the LGBTQ community and should be banned. They corrode the legitimacy of federal prosecutions, and blame victims for the violence committed against them.
“All Americans deserve to be treated with dignity and humanity in our justice system,” Markey added. “As we celebrate Pride Month with our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, I call on my colleagues to support this bill and relegate hateful practice of gay and trans panic defense to the history books.”
Markey’s Senate bill is being co-sponsored by 8 Democrats and two independents, Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Angus King (Maine). Kennedy’s House version of the bill is being co-sponsored by 26 other lawmakers, all Democrats.
The National LGBT Bar Association, which has called for banning gay and trans panic defenses for more than a decade, praised the introduction of the bill.
“Gay and trans ‘panic’ defenses have long stood as a symbol of dangerous and outdated thinking,” D’Arcy Kemnitz, the executive director of the National LGBT Bar Association, said in a statement. “The Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act would protect LGBTQ+ lives and send a clear message that hate has no place in the federal courtroom.”
The United States Tennis Association, the national governing body for tennis in the United States, has quietly banned transgender athletes from competing in women's events.
As first reported by independent journalist Marisa Kabas in her newsletter The Handbasket, the USTA revised its "Player Eligibility Policy" page on October 25 with no prior warning or public announcement.
Under the revised policy -- which applies to all sex-specific junior and adult leagues, tournaments, and competitions, whether Olympic, professional, or recreational -- only athletes who meet the USTA's definition of a woman or girl may compete in events designated for women or girls.
Texas A&M University System regents unanimously approved a policy requiring each campus president to sign off on any course that could be viewed as advocating "race and gender ideology" or addressing sexual orientation or gender identity.
The policy defines race ideology as "attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity" or anything that "promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity rather than academic instruction." Gender ideology is defined as "a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex."
A California man has pleaded not guilty to a brutal attack that left a 57-year-old gay man in a coma after objecting to the victim’s Halloween costume.
Sean Wesley Payton Jr., 24, of Sacramento, is accused of assaulting Alvin Prasad around 1:30 a.m. on November 1.
Prasad had been out at Badlands, an LGBTQ nightclub, with his adult daughter, Andrea, on Halloween night. He was dressed in an 18th-century coat and hat, along with knee-high platform boots, a pink wig, and large white wings strapped to his back.
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