Insults, spitting, discrimination and even physical violence… Hate against LGBT + people remains “rooted” in French society, is alarmed, in its annual report published on Tuesday, the ociation SOS phobia, which calls on the government to “ act much more resolutely” against this scourge. Thanks to its help line and its digital spaces, the ociation collected in 2022 some 1,500 reports relating to situations of phobic hatred or transphobic, a level more or less stable compared to the previous year. On the other hand, the evolution is “worrying” concerning physical attacksup 28% between 2021 and 2022, i.e. one every two days, underlines Joël Deumier, co-president of the ociation.
Violence, which can take the form of “ambushes stretched via dating applications”, sometimes descends on the victims “for futile and often non-existent reasons”, summarize the authors of the report. They cite numerous cases, such as that of a couple of men who were stabbed in the metro, of two women who discovered about twenty spit on their car, of a young man who was beaten up by five ailants or even of another hared by his neighbor who told him: “you are of a race that does not deserve to live”. “Despite the evolution of laws and mentalities, today LGBT people still cannot live freely, as they are”, deplores Joël Deumier.
In addition to the attacks, the report denounces the discrimination of which s are victims and cites in particular cases of real estate agencies “which refuse to rent or sell to LGBT + couples or families”. A gay couple could not rent a room in a Parisian hotel, on the grounds that “it is not possible, two men in a room with a large bed”. Similarly, a non-binary person was denied entry to a public library and a transgender octogenarian was denied entry to a hearing aid shop.
An increase in transphobic acts
After a 13% increase in 2021, transphobic acts have increased by 26% in 2022, a form of rejection “trivialized” and maintained by schools which “often refuse any administrative modification” of the gender of transgender students, also denounces the report. To stop these acts of hatred, the government must launch a “national awareness campaign”, believes SOS phobia, for which it would also be necessary to “strengthen the means of investigation” and better train the police who still too often refuse take victims’ complaints into account.
The report also draws up an inventory of LGBT rights elsewhere in the world: while some States have recently established “marriage for all”, conversely the situation has deteriorated in countries such as Afghanistan, or Iran where two lesbian women were sentenced to death. ity is still criminally punishable in more than 70 countries. In a column to be published Wednesday on the website of the newspaper Le Monde, the French committee of the international ociation against phobia IDAHO pleads for the General embly of the United Nations to propose a moratorium on the application of executions or prison sentences imposed on people “simply because they are what they are”.
“Some countries believe that public opinion is not ready” for an abolition of repressive measures, and it is not a question of asking States to renounce “their philosophy, their values or their religious beliefs”, explains ociation. But “in the meantime, with a moratorium on the application of sentences, the countries concerned could save face, and we could save lives”, concludes the report.