Over half of gay men in Britain have reported not feeling safe holding their partner’s hand in public.
That finding comes from a recent survey conducted by Stonewall, asking 5,000 members of the LGBTQ community about hate crimes and discrimination.
38 percent of all respondents reported being afraid to hold their partner’s hand, and that number jumped to 58 percent among gay men.
Other findings include:
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- One in five LGBT people (21 per cent) have experienced a hate crime or incident due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months
- Two in five trans people (41 per cent) have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months and one in six LGB people, who aren’t trans (16 per cent), have experienced a hate crime or incident due to their sexual orientation in the same period
- The number of lesbian, gay and bisexual people who have experienced a hate crime or incident in the last year because of their sexual orientation has risen by 78 per cent from nine per cent in 2013 to 16 per cent in 2017
- Four in five LGBT people (81 per cent) who experienced a hate crime or incident didn’t report it to the police
- Three in 10 LGBT people (29 per cent) avoid certain streets because they do not feel safe there as an LGBT person
- More than a third of LGBT people (36 per cent) say they don’t feel comfortable walking down the street while holding their partner’s hand. This increases to three in five gay men (58 per cent)
- One in 10 LGBT people (10 per cent) have experienced homophobic, biphobic or transphobic abuse online directed towards them personally in the last month. This number increases to one in four for trans people (26 per cent) directly experiencing transphobic abuse online in the last month
The report is available in full online to view or download.
Homophobic attacks in the UK rose 147 percent in the three months after the Brexit vote, and hate crimes rose 20 percent in the United States last year, fueled in part by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, experts have said.
The FBI has said that LGBTQ people are the group most likely to be targeted for hate crimes.
