Pride month saw 145 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence
GLAAD and the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism report there were 145 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence, harassment, and vandalism during Pride Month this year in the U.S.
The “dramatic spike” has seen at least five murders of LGBTQ people in recent weeks, GLAAD wrote in a statement about the killing of gay dancer O’Shae Sibley over the weekend in a suspected hate crime. “Politicians spewing lies and proposing policies filled with disinformation, and media repeating their false and dangerous rhetoric unchallenged, are creating an incredibly hostile environment that endangers all LGBTQ people and all queer people of color,” said Darian Aaron, GLAAD’s director of local news, U.S.
South. GLAAD notes the following recent murders of LGBTQ people in addition to Sibley: 18-year-old Jacob Williamson in South Carolina, a transgender man who was killed after going on a date.
24-year-old Akira Ross, who was shot and killed at a Cedar Park, Texas, gas station by a man who reportedly yelled a homophobic slur at her.
