Homophobic or transphobic insults and attacks fell by 15% in 2020. – ALLILI MOURAD / SIPA
Could the fact that the French have been confined for a quarter of 2020 have something to do with it…? The Interior Ministry announced on Wednesday that homophobic or transphobic insults and attacks had fallen by 15% in 2020. This drop marks a halt to the sharp increase observed in the previous two years (36% in 2019 and 33% in 2019). % 2018).
More exactly, the police and gendarmerie have identified during this year “1,590 victims of crimes or offenses of a homophobic or transphobic nature”, against 1,870 in 2019, specifies the ministry in a press release. 2020 was marked by “the exceptional context of the health crisis” of Covid-19 and in particular by “two periods of national confinement of the population”, recalls the ministry.
A quarter of the victims suffered physical violence
Almost a third of victims suffered “anti-LGBT” name calling (31%) and one in four non-sexual physical violence (26%). Among the victims of physical violence, half (51%) had a total incapacity for work (ITT). Victims of threats represent 21% of all victims, up from 2019. Just under three in four victims of “anti-LGBT” crimes or offenses are men. The victims are mainly young people, 60% being under 35 (compared to 62% in 2019).
The number of “criminal offenses recorded by the security services because of the victim’s real or supposed sexual orientation” continued to increase (1,380, or + 14%, after + 27% in 2019). The vast majority, in 2020 as in 2019, are “non-public insults” (over 85%).
Half of crimes or misdemeanors committed in public places
Six out of ten victims are recorded in agglomerations of 200,000 inhabitants and more, a stable proportion compared to 2019. If “nearly half of ‘anti-LGBT’ crimes or offenses are committed in public places”, the year 2020 has seen, because of the periods of confinement, more victims suffer the facts in an individual or collective dwelling, adds the ministry.
However, these statistics remain out of step with reality, with many victims not daring to file a complaint. “The lodging of a complaint is an approach very little carried out by the victims”, confirms the ministry, recalling that according to a survey carried out on the period 2012-2018, “approximately 20% of the victims of threats or violence” anti-LGBT “and only 5% of victims of” anti-LGBT “insults declare having lodged a complaint on average”.