Free Coming Around: Parenting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Kids by Anne Dohrenwend

Statistic Act in 1990 and, as a result of this law, the FBI began collecting national data on hate crimes associated with race, religion, sexual orientation and ethnicity. After the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law in 2009, the FBI began tracking hate crimes against transgender individuals as well. This information will be available in 2013 on the FBI Web site in the annual Uniform Crime Report.
    There is much debate as to the accuracy of FBI hate crimes data. While all but a handful of states have enacted some formof hate crime legislation, some states do not include sexual orientation and very few include gender orientation among the list of targeted groups. If a state does not recognize bias-motivated crimes against LGBTQs as hate crimes, there is little motivation for victims to report. In fact, the FBI notes that their statistics are limited because some police jurisdictions fail to report hate crime data to the FBI or submit partial data. In addition, it is thought that many victims of hate crimes are weary of reporting violence against them due to fear of reprisal or fear of further victimization from law enforcement.
    With these caveats considered, the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics, 2010 indicates that about 19 percent (1,528 incidents) of all the reported hate crimes were motivated by sexual orientation bias. When considering this statistic, it is important to remember that only 3 to 10 percent of the population identifies as being LGB. Gay men were more often the target of hate crimes than lesbians or bisexuals.
    WHY DOES SOMEONE COMMIT A HATE CRIME?
    The fear that drives homophobia can be understood as a fear of the unknown. This is not unlike the fear one might have visiting a foreign country. When people first encounter a new culture, they are prone to exaggerate differences and to assume that their ways are the best ways. They soon learn that the similarities between cultures are greater than the differences. We discover that different doesn’t mean inferior. Similarly, studies show that exposure to LGBTQ individuals dramatically reduces homophobia.
    Unfortunately, some people aren’t exposed to interaction with LGBTQs. In the absence of exposure and in the presence of anti-gay influences, ignorance can morph into hatred. A fear of being gay can give rise to a hate of homosexuals. In this case hate is self-hate manifested externally. The idea that people fixate on a particular “weakness” in others because they cannot tolerate that “weakness” in themselves has existed for centuries. It is the implication of Shakespeare’s “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
    One classic study dramatically illustrates this truth. Conducting a study at the Psychology Department of the University of Georgia, researchers Henry Adams, Lester Wright and Bethany Lohr asked agroup of men to complete a scale that assessed homophobia. They then showed the men homoerotic video while measuring biological signs of sexual arousal. The men who scored low in homophobia were not aroused by the video. The men who scored high in homophobia were sexually aroused. 2
    Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna Freud called the unconscious externalizing of one’s feelings projection. Projection is one of a number of defense mechanisms that humans rely on to reduce unbearable anxiety, like those caused by unacceptable urges. When a person experiences his homosexual desires as repulsive, he will try to resist them. If he fails in this, the psyche may try to defend against this “painful” truth by hiding it from the conscious mind. To ensure that those feelings stay buried, this individual will hate homosexuality in others. Anything short of vilifying homosexuality puts him at risk of rethinking or reconnecting with his own homosexual urges. In addition, he may feel some relief by attacking gays. The hate he feels toward himself is buried but unresolved. It is in need of