Sources: https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-hdgso-report-part2_sv.pdf (Report from FRA, 2008, in Swedish)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-60257602 (Article from BBC, 2022, English)
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2020-to-2021/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2020-to-2021 (Statistic from the Home Office of the UK, 2020-21 English)
https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2020-lgbti-equality-1_en.pdf (“A long way to equality” report by FRA, 2020, English)
https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/new-fbi-hate-crimes-report-shows-increases-in-anti-lgbtq-attacks (Press release by HRC, 2020, English)
The increasing hate toward the LGBT+ community is a growing worldwide issue reported in multiple international news and different organisations reports. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights wrote a report in 2008 about what rights LGBT+ people in the European Union had and how LGBT+ people were treated in the different member states of the EU. They conclude that the human rights for LGBT+ people in the EU are not satisfying and members of the LGBT+ community are being discriminated, bullied, and verbally and physically attacked for their sexuality. The Agency also reported that some countries are more LGBT+ friendly than others, such as Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden and France while countries such as Poland, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria had more homophobia on a national level and a majority of the population didn’t want to allow same-sex marriage or even have a homosexual person as a neighbour.
BBC reported earlier this year that LGBT tolerance is going backwards and the British Home Office statistic showed that hate crimes against people because of their sexual orientation have doubled during the last 4 years. A founder of the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall told BBC that “Sadly this is something that happens all too often in our community and there is actually a rising level of hate crimes against all kinds of LGBT people”. In 2016-2017 there were 8569 reported cases of hate crime against LGBT+ people in England and Wales, while in 2021 there were 17 135 reported cases. The Human Rights Campaign posted a press release in late 2020 about a new report from the FBI that shows that a hate crimes report shows that there is an increasing anti-LGBTQ movement. However, HRC underlines that it is not mandatory to report hate crime cases to the FBI and thus the amount of hate crime cases are expected to be even more than what the FBI has written in their report. The passing of the “Don’t say gay” bill in Florida is also believed to increase the LGBT+ hate and there is a risk that other states get inspired by the bill and implement something similar.
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, FRA, did a survey where they asked LGBT+ people in the different member states some questions regarding their lives and sexualities. The result showed that 53% of the respondents are almost never or rarely open about their sexuality. 60% of the respondents answered that they always or often avoid holding hands with their same-sex partners. 33% of the respondents answered that they always or often avoid certain places or locations because of a fear of being assaulted, threatened or harassed because they are a part of the LGBT+ community. 37% of the respondents in age 15-17 answered that they are almost never open about their sexuality.
Even though the statistics and reports are sad and deeply disappointing it also shows the road to equality is still far away. LGBT+ people need to be normalised, which we do by talking about it and being represented and shown in media, movies, series, music and so on. A huge responsibility lies on heterosexual people since they have the power of normalizing LGBT+ people by showing that everyone has the same rights and values and that different sexuality doesn’t make anyone less of a human.
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