On Monday the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released a report showing anti-LGBT hate homicides have been rising since the last months of the 2016 election cycle.
Even excluding the horrific mass shooting at Pulse, an Orlando nightclub, 2016 saw 28 hate-driven homicides of LGBT people, the most of any year since 2012. There were nearly twice as many such homicides last year.
In 2017, NCAVP recorded reports of 52 hate violence related homicides of LGBTQ people, the highest number ever recorded by NCAVP. This number represents an 86% increase in single incident reports from 2016.In 2017, there was the equivalent of one homicide of an LGBTQ person in the U.S. each week.
Comprised of 40 community-based groups, and led by Beverly Tillery, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs attributes the rise in anti-LGBT homicides, at least in part, to President Donald J. Trump.
President Donald “Trump won the election by saying it was time to take back America for people feeling pushed out by LGBTQ people, immigrants and people of color,” Tillery told HuffPost.
“It was a tactical move to attack those communities,” she added. “It worked, and there are more instances of violence because the climate in the country has changed. It has given an opening for people to feel like they can commit acts of hate-based violence without much repercussion.”
Violence has always affected certain LGBT populations more than others. Most of 2017’s victims were queer cisgender men or transgender women; people of color were, as always, disproportionately represented. Altogether, of the 52 people killed in anti-LGBT hate homicides in 2017, 22 were transgender women of color.
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs also tracks anti-LGBT hate-based violence overall. These incidents, too, the organization says, have increased.
“There are many people in the community who are feeling impacted right now, whether by experiencing more violence directly or knowing people who have experienced violence,” Tillery said. “People are feeling targeted because of actions of the Trump administration, which are trying to take us back in terms of LGBTQ rights and safety.”
Tillery added: “I don’t know whether all this is based on Trump’s beliefs or not, but at this point, it feels hard to imagine it’s not.”
NCAVP will release a second report later this year on overall violence against members of the LGBT community.