The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) released a report that concluded that anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes have increased since 2020 across the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.
The report stated, “After two decades of gains for LGBTQ+ visibility and rights in many countries, anti-LGBTQ+ targeted hate and rhetoric are on the rise. Offline, there has been a surge of reported hate crimes and book bans, alongside a wave of government and legislative actions targeting LGBTQ+ rights (with a focus on trans people). Online, LGBTQ+ individuals face coordinated harassment campaigns, a rollback of digital protections, and systematic erasure from AI training data and moderation.”
In the U.S., queer people are five times more likely to be the victims of violent crime compared to their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts and are nine times more likely to experience violent hate crimes, the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute revealed in a study. The most recent UK crime statistics showed a decrease of 11% in annual anti-trans hate crimes in the year ending March 2025 while hate crimes related to sexual orientation reduced by 2%. However, this follows years of sharp increase, especially in 2021-22; the Home Office speculated that a discussion of trans people on social media possibly caused the spike.
The ISD report also looked at legislative actions, concluding that anti-LGBTQ+ measures have negatively affected the queer community in all three geographical areas, with the ACLU saying that “political attacks against LGBTQ people have grown exponentially in state legislatures across the country” since 2015 in the U.S.
Specific anti-LGBTQ+ incidents were also mentioned, such as two people being killed and at least nine being injured during a mass shooting on two bars in Oslo, Norway, by a man who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
Regarding online harms, the ISD report examined the anti-LGBTQ+ slur “groomer,” self-styled “transvestigators” and anti-trans statements, with GLAAD determining that platforms generally undermoderate anti-LGBTQ+ hate content and overmoderate content from LGBTQ+ individuals. Also, the study noted that “some online erasure appears to be the unintended consequence of AI moderation and online safety legislation, although such tools can be deliberately weaponized.”