I missed this report from UN’s Navi Pillay from May, but worrying the trend for homophobic and transphobic hate crime across the world is rising…I heard about this via the Metro’s excellent piece about being transgender in Latin America where the majority of the world’s transgender murders are occuring…although I was heartened by the statistic that 14 million people have transitioned male to female worldwide, and 4.5 million women to men, this is not a small minority despite the attacks and stigma!
Why is it increasing? Well I look to the religious leaders across the world and politicians who use the queer community as a punchbag to bolster their image, and their words of hate have definite bruises and marks to show for it…sadly these people feel they have the right to encourage people to hate, harm and kill, but get off scot-free because they aren’t holding the knife or gun, or causing the self-harm. In my mind they are just as much as responsible.
Like racism many moons ago there needs to be a change in approach and thinking, it seems that many governments ignore or even make illegal any gay or transgender activity or ‘lifestyle’ (like I could change it!) – I described it on Facebook as a war, and it most definitely is when you look at how many have died for this cause.
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