Hate Rising
Strong winds of anti-LGBTQ sentiments have been blowing across the country. Anjali Rimi, a South Asian transgender woman based in the Bay Area, knows all too well what it’s like to be the target of such animus.
This past June, she found herself being stalked by the very people who were trolling her online. “That’s why I didn’t want to go to Pride this year,” she said in an interview with India Currents. In fact, she’s wary of going out much these days.
Last year, some 600 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures across the U.S., which is three times the number of such bills introduced in 2022, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Speaking at a July 18 Ethnic Media Services briefing, Becky Monroe, Deputy Director of Strategic Initiatives and External Affairs at the Civil Rights Department, provided a breakdown of the data related to California.
A Chorus of Hate
When Dylan Mulvaney, a social media influencer and a transgender woman promoted a contest sponsored by Bud Light on her Instagram account, on April 1, last year, she couldn’t have known about the events that she would trigger.
Her seemingly innocuous marketing ploy sparked a chorus of outrage against both transgender people and the brand itself. There were loud calls from conservatives to boycott it.
In California, the past year has seen a jump in attacks—ranging from verbal to physical—against gays, lesbians, bisexuals as well as transgender and non-gender-conforming people. according to a report published by the office of Rob Bonta, California’s Attorney General. During the same period, though, there has been a decline in the number of hate incidents overall in the state of 7.1 percent—down from 2,120 in 2022 to 1,970 in 2023.
While the number of hate events and hate crimes directed at gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, increased by 4.1 percent—from 391 in 2022 to 405 in 2023, those targeting transgender people increased by 10.2 percent—up from 59 in 2022 to 65 in 2023.
Hate on the street
Two years ago, Anjali Rimi and a friend, another transgender woman, were physically attacked while walking in downtown San Francisco. Just as they were about to cross the street, a person on a motorcycle charged at them. Anjali was injured.
Rimi also has experienced negative treatment within the South Asian LGBTQ group itself. “When you’re at a table, where there are gay men, you’re made to feel lesser than them. You are made to feel that you, being a transgender person, belong in a lower rung of the social ladder,” she said.
Transgender folks, both within the South Asian community and outside, have it harder.
Intolerance of transgender people
The Los Angeles Times and the NORC, a research agency at the University of Chicago, conducted a poll recently to gauge public opinion on the LGBTQ community. What it found was that while most Americans were accepting of same-sex marriage, of same-sex couples raising kids, and of laws that protected queer people from discrimination in the workplace, they were less tolerant toward transgender and non-binary people, also known as non-gender-conforming people, of all ages.
Politics played a big role in influencing people’s thoughts and feelings.
In an interview, Sarah Kate Ellis, President of GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy nonprofit, told PBS that politicians were filling the airwaves with anti-LGBTQ messages, which were then getting picked up by social media, and from there, they were making their way offline, where they were getting translated into acts of hate and violence.
Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric
Those who were watching the Republican National Convention, held recently in Milwaukee, may have seen a flurry of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric of the kind that Ellis speaks of.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right-wing Republican from Georgia, said “Let me state this clearly. There are only two genders.” Representative John James, a Republican from Michigan, complained about transgender women playing in women’s sports. “Our daughters were sold on hope and now they’re being forced on the playing fields and changing rooms of biological males,” he said.
The South Asian LGBTQ community is impacted less by domestic politics and more by international political events, such as the Israel-Hamas war and the political climate in India, among others, Rimi said.
The fact that she’s a vocal Trans activist holding her cultural and religious identities together, a fact she’s not afraid to hide – and wears a saree in public, has led Rimi’s opponents to attack her on the grounds of these identities that are misconstrued and used to create hate against her.”
