This past weekend, in what has become the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history, 50 people were killed at a gay nightclub in Orlando. While the attack has grabbed the attention of the entire country for its scope, violence against the LGBT community is not an anomaly.
A new report compiled by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) collected data from 13 member organizations, using public sources or directly speaking with survivors. Data focused on hate violence that resulted in fatalities, which are classified as homicides, and non-fatal hate violence.
According to the annual report released on June 13, hate violence homicides against LGBTQ and HIV-affected people increased in 2015. The NCAVP received 24 reports of hate violence-related homicide against LGBTQ and HIV-affected people in 2015, a 20 percent increase in the number of reports the organization received in 2014. Following a disturbing trend, people of color and transgender and gender nonconforming people made up the majority of victims of this hate violence. The report showed that 62 percent of the victims in these homicides were people of color and 67 percent were transgender and non-conforming people.
In data that looked at 1,253 non-fatal incidents of hate violence, a majority of survivors identified as gay, youth and young adults, and people of color. Looking closer at the numbers, 47 percent of survivors identified as gay, 17 percent as lesbian, and 14 percent as heterosexual. The largest age group to experience hate violence were aged 19 to 39, making up 57 percent of survivors. Furthermore, survivors of color made up 60 percent of the total pool, with Latinos making up the largest racial/ethnic percentage of survivors at 28 percent. The report also saw an increase in the percentage of survivors who were undocumented, jumping from 6 percent in 2014 to 17 percent in 2015.
The most common types of hate violence that were reported were verbal harassment, discrimination, physical violence, and threats or intimidation. There was also an increase in the percentage of survivors who sustained injuries from incidents of hate violence. Data also show that a person of color was more at risk of experiencing physical violence — two times more likely when compared to a white person.
The NCAVP report also found that a majority survivors experienced violence by someone they knew, with 62 percent of people knowing who committed the violence against them. Transgender survivors were especially more likely to report knowing their offender.
Between 2014 and 2015, there was a decrease in the percentage of survivors who reported their experience to police, dropping from 54 percent in 2014 to 41 percent in 2015. This decrease in reports could be attributed to the greater focus placed on police violence across the country from activist groups like Black Lives Matter that may result in increased apprehension and distrust toward law enforcement. In fact, 41 percent of survivors who did report their experience with hate violence to police said they were indifferent, and 39 percent said police were hostile.
The report also includes a list of recommendations to combat the hate violence. Some of these recommendations include a buildup of systems of social and community support for LGBTQ and HIV-affected communities and a decrease in police violence as well as the over-policing of these communities. The report also calls for alternative community accountability models that provide survivors with safe access to justice.
Celisa Calacal is an intern with ThinkProgress.