Pride month saw 145 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence: report

GLAAD and the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism report there were 145 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence, harassment, and vandalism during Pride Month this year in the U.S.

The “dramatic spike” has seen at least five murders of LGBTQ people in recent weeks, GLAAD wrote in a statement about the killing of gay dancer O’Shae Sibley over the weekend in a suspected hate crime.

“Politicians spewing lies and proposing policies filled with disinformation, and media repeating their false and dangerous rhetoric unchallenged, are creating an incredibly hostile environment that endangers all LGBTQ people and all queer people of color,” said Darian Aaron, GLAAD’s director of local news, U.S. South.

GLAAD notes the following recent murders of LGBTQ people in addition to Sibley:

• 18-year-old Jacob Williamson in South Carolina, a transgender man who was killed after going on a date.

• 24-year-old Akira Ross, who was shot and killed at a Cedar Park, Texas, gas station by a man who reportedly yelled a homophobic slur at her.

• Three transgender women, Cam Chamberlain, Ash- ley Burton, and Chanell Perez Ortiz, who were killed in separate incidents in Central Texas, Atlanta, and Carolina, Puerto Rico, as first reported by PGHLesbian.

• Colin Smith, a straight, cisgender man, who was killed defending an LGBTQ friend being harassed by a man using homophobic slurs according to The Oregonian.

GLAAD’s research also found “more than 160 attacks against drag events and performers over the last year, increasingly with violence and fomented by extremist and white supremacist groups,” the group wrote.

In addition to the incidents documented over Pride month, GLAAD and the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism found “more than 350 incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault over an eleven-month period beginning in June 2022.”

Aaron said, “There are reports that Sibley was vogueing to a track from Beyonce’s Renaissance album, music from the biggest pop star in the world celebrating Black queer people. O’Shae Sibley had the audacity to live without the restraints of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, embracing freedom and joy. He should still be alive to celebrate all that made him great and inspired others to live their truth. “

Police sources told CBS News New York on Monday that a suspect involved in the stabbing death of Sibley has been identified by the NYPD.