2016 the deadliest year for LGBTQ community in the US

According to a report by Telesur, 2016 was the deadliest year on record for the US LGBTQ community. Even setting aside the 49 victims of the Pulse nightclub attack, the hate crime and homicide statistics for the community rose from 2015.

“Of these attacks on the LGBTQ community and those affected by HIV, an overwhelming majority of the victims are “people of colour, transgender and gender non-conforming people,” reported the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs

Including the Pulse victims, 77 people were murdered in anti-LGBTQ homicides, the report said. Most of the victims were transgender, of whom 64 percent were black and over half were younger than 35.

With the US’s recent hard-right swing in politics, homophobia and racial biases were revived that placed LGBTQ people of colour right at the crossroads of discrimination, the Telesur report said.

The NCAVP also noted an increase in anti-LBGTQ legislation in the US. One hundred and twenty-five bills were introduced in 32 states in 2015, with the number increasing to 156 in 2016. By March of 2017, 21 states adopted anti-gay laws on the basis of “religious exemption,” according to Telesur’s report.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has also overturned several federal protections enacted by the Obama administration.