All parts of Australia have abolished the LGBT+ ‘panic’ defense to murder – after the South Australia Parliament passed its legal ban this week.
Gay and trans panic defenses are legal strategies which lawyers use to defend murderers and attackers. The defendant may claim that a gay or trans person made an unwanted sexual advance on them.
They then justify any attack as them acting in self-defense or claim they were so shocked by the advance they were temporarily insane.
Lawyers then argue their clients’ attack was understandable and that they should get a lesser sentence. The defence was most recently used in South Australia five years ago.