Omar Mateen鈥檚 attack on the Pulse gay club in Orlando, Florida, is the deadliest mass shooting in modern US聽history. It has been called many things聽鈥� a terror attack, a consequence of lax gun laws, the actions of a man struggling with his identity. But it is also undeniably a hate crime.
Amid the shock and grief people asked why it happened. There are many responses to this question. One is whether . The rationale is that discussing whether transgender people should be free to use bathrooms that align with the gender they identify with has brought people under the spotlight, making them more visible targets.
The bathroom bills are the latest in a slew of policy changes across many US states regarding sexual orientation and transgender status. Some have aimed to give lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people a more equal position in society, others, like , have sought to restrict rights.
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Damned if you do, damned if you don鈥檛
Some people understandably feel that discussion of laws that would . 鈥淲hen you are pushing forward a system based on a聽culture of hate, ?鈥� James Miller of the LGBT Center of Raleigh, North Carolina, said聽after the shooting.
鈥淭here鈥檇 be a 27 per cent drop in hate crime if you went from no states to all states having these laws鈥�
Levelling the playing field with pro-equality laws can seem futile too,聽because it might trigger a vicious . So it鈥檚 damned if you legislate, damned if you don鈥檛.
Or at least that鈥檚 how it has seemed. The first study investigating the effect of public policy on hate crimes based on sexual orientation suggests that pro-equality laws do actually reduce hate crimes. The study focused on three pro-equality laws and tracked levels of reported hate crime in the years following their implementation between 2000 and 2012 (Social Science Research, ).
鈥淚f you went from no states having these laws, to all states implementing them, you鈥檇 see a 27 per cent decrease in reported hate crimes,鈥� says co-author Brian Levy of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Increasingly unacceptable
The introduction of employment discrimination laws and laws that deem crimes motivated by sexual orientation to be hate crimes were followed by a drop in hate crime. But when laws recognising same-sex partnerships were passed, more hate crimes were reported. These increases were highest about two years after the law was introduced, suggesting they had little to do with the preceding debate. Rather, the authors think that people became more confident in reporting such incidents.
This has been seen before. A 1999聽report into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence triggered a change of the UK legal definition of hate crime. Such crimes then surged. This should be taken as a hallmark of success, says Michael Sutton at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. 鈥淲hen laws are passed, the crimes are seen as increasingly unacceptable.鈥�
There are other caveats to Levy鈥檚 study. Data was collected until 2012, so it doesn鈥檛 reflect the greater visibility in the past few years of LGBT people in the media, or the rise of Donald Trump and the backlash against political correctness. Still, it offers hope. Debating new laws might come with terrible consequences, but if the laws enshrine equality and freedom, they might herald a better future.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淓nshrine equality in law and it will pay off鈥�
