The number of hostilities and attacks on queer people has been increasing for years. In the past year, the social climate has worsened again, says the lesbian and gay association.
According to their interest groups, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans people are increasingly exposed to hostility. “The social climate against queer people has become significantly worse in the last year,” said Mara Geri from the Federal Executive Board of the Lesbian and Gay Association on the day against homophobia to the dpa news agency.
The number of attacks has been rising for years. This trend continued last year, according to security sources. Accordingly, the number of crimes registered by the police against people because of their sexual orientation increased significantly. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to present the official statistics on this next Tuesday.
More acts because of gender and sexual orientation
According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the police authorities already noticed a significant increase in registered anti-LGBTI crimes in 2021: According to this, crimes based on sexual orientation increased by around 50 percent to 870 crimes. In the area of “gender or sexual identity” the number increased by 66 percent to 340 offenses.
What is LGBTI and queer?
LGBTI stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. The term queer – sometimes also found as the letter Q at the end of the abbreviation – is a collective term for everyone who is not heterosexual or does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Sometimes there is also an asterisk or plus at the end of the abbreviation: This stands for all other, unnamed identities.
According to the ministry, in 2022, 1,005 more crimes against queer people were registered nationwide. These included 227 acts of violence. In 2023, the number of cases in the categories “misogynistic”, “sexual orientation” and “gender-related diversity” increased significantly compared to the previous year, sources said.
“We are observing with great concern the increase in anti-queer attacks,” said Geri. There is mainly right-wing extremist propaganda. “Through demonization of LGBTIQ* and targeted disinformation, hatred and agitation should become socially acceptable again – and these words become actions,” said Geri.
High number of unreported cases suspected
The association therefore assumes that the number of incidents is largely unreported, “because it is difficult to clearly identify an anti-queer motive and those affected sometimes do not report crimes out of shame or mistrust of the police.”
According to dpa, the Federal Association Trans* eV sees it similarly: “These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.” From a civil society perspective, there is no comparable comprehensive monitoring that registers cases of violence nationwide.
The International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia dates back to May 17, 1990: At that time, the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to remove homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses.