New York State Capitol Building – Photo: Einar Einarsson Kvaran, via Wikimedia.
New York state lawmakers have passed a bill prohibiting the use of gay and trans “panic” defenses by criminal defendants accused of serious violent crimes.
The bill targets the use of a victim’s sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sex assigned at birth as an affirmative defense.
Typically, defendants that have employed the use of gay or trans panic defenses claim they were so shocked, frightened, or unable to control their emotions after discovering a victim’s identity that they were justified in assaulting, injuring, or even killing the victim.
Such defenses do not mean defendants are not criminally liable, but are used in the hope of obtaining a plea deal or conviction on lesser charges.
Examples of cases involving LGBTQ victims where defendants attempted to use panic as an affirmative defense include the murders of Matthew Shepard, Gwen Araujo, Ahmed Dabarran, and Angie Zapata.
The bill passed the Assembly and State Senate, and now heads to the desk of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who’s expected to sign it into law.
Once it is signed, New York will become the sixth state to pass such a bill, following California, Illinois, Rhode Island, Nevada, and Connecticut.
Cuomo praised the bill’s passage in a tweet, writing: “With the enactment of this measure we are sending this noxious legal defense strategy to the dustbin of history where it belongs. This is an important win for LGBTQ people everywhere.”
The ban on the 'gay and trans panic' legal defense just passed!
With the enactment of this measure we are sending this noxious legal defense strategy to the dustbin of history where it belongs.
The National LGBT Bar Association praised the bill’s passage.
“As one of the nation’s leading expert on this issue, the LGBT Bar is proud to see the passage of this legislation,” the organization said in a statement. “Our organization has worked to ban such defenses for over a decade and was instrumental in the passage of the 2013 American Bar AssociationResolutioncalling for an end to this practice in court…. The LGBT Bar thanks Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his staunch support of A8375, and we look forward to him signing this crucial legislation into law.”
Glennda Testone, the executive director of New York City’s LGBT Community Center, also issued a statement praising the bill’s passage.
“The Center wholeheartedly applauds New York State lawmakers for passing a ban on the gay/trans ‘panic’ defense, ensuring that LGBTQ New Yorkers who are victims of hate crimes will no longer be blamed for the violence committed against them,” Testone said. “This legislation makes it clear that homophobia and transphobia cannot be used in our courts to justify discriminatory violence.
“The gay/trans ‘panic’ defense has been a legal strategy used in criminal cases where a defendant claims that finding out a person’s actual or assumed sexual orientation or gender identity caused an ‘extreme emotional disturbance’ that led them to violently attack that person,” Testone added. “It plays into harmful stereotypes, insinuating that it’s reasonable or justifiable to attack or murder an LGBTQ person simply because of who they are. … The significance of this victory in New York will help advocates build momentum across the country until this abhorrent practice ends everywhere, once and for all.”
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a directive from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that prohibits transgender and nonbinary individuals from obtaining passports reflecting their gender identities.
Rubio's directive, issued in January, had instructed State Department staff to freeze all applications for passports with "X" gender markers or applications requesting changes to gender markers on existing passports.
Rubio also directed his subordinate to enforce a section of the Immigration and Nationalist Act that allows the United States to refuse entry to any visa applicant who commits identity fraud or misrepresents who they are, with particular focus on transgender athletes from foreign countries.
Luke Ash, a Baptist pastor who worked at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, says he was fired after refusing to use a trans co-worker's preferred pronouns.
Luke Ash, lead pastor of Stevendale Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, says he was fired from his job as a library technician at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library after refusing to use a co-worker's preferred pronouns. He was reportedly dismissed after referring to the colleague by female pronouns during a July 7 conversation with another library employee.
"That co-worker corrected me, said that the person she was training preferred to be called 'he,' and I refused to use those preferred pronouns," Ash told anti-LGBTQ activist and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins during an interview on the conservative Christian political show Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.
New York City’s LGBTQ voters narrowly favor State Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the upcoming Democratic primary -- though one in four remain undecided as early voting begins this week.
A new poll by the Honan Strategy Group, commissioned by LGBTQ advocacy group Destination Tomorrow, finds that LGBTQ New Yorkers make up about 20% of the Democratic electorate heading into the June 24 primary, according to The New York Post.
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