(And as a side note, the fact that I say ‘this week’ should probably give you some idea of what else I get the joy of experiencing every day.)

This, my beloved fellow activists, is the 'Gay Panic Defence’, as used in US, Australian and UK law, for starters.  It may be used in other jurisdictions too, but it’s half past one in the morning and my impulsive wrath does not immediately stretch to spending a few hours with legal texts. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_panic_defense 

Are they kidding?  Just because someone had the nerve to 'make a pass’ at someone else - which, let’s face it, given the oversensitivity of some people could be something as small as complimenting them on the colour of their shirt - does not in any way give anyone the right to kill them.  Given that in the UK people have been successfully prosecuted for killing a person who was trying to rob them, it’s like saying that being hit on by that guy you once met in a pub is a worse affront than being threatened into handing over your valuables.  Maybe a sexual advance is now considered a more terrible weapon than a knife or a rock, I don’t know, but it seems a bit weird to say the least.

Now, let’s just make this clear - I’m not talking about people who defend themselves against rape or attempted assault.  Anyone who knows me will know that.  However, there is a huge difference between making an unsuccessful 'pass’ on someone and forcibly molesting them.  I wonder if by their logic I could have beat the guy outside the Hercules to death with my e-reader in retaliation for his comment of 'eeeeee, lovely tits, love’ (rather than impulsively telling him I wanted to slit his throat and fuck the wound, which made him run away pretty damn fast, even if I was maybe even more shocked than he was about what I’d just said.)  'No, officers, it’s OK!  I had every right to murder this man because he complimented me on the beauty of my breasts.  You see, I’m a bisexual having a lesbian day, and the horror of being propositioned by a member of the opposite sex scared me senseless for a few minutes!’  I mean, come on.  I have fucking PTSD and I’ve never murdered anyone, not even the creep in Boots who grabbed my admittedly fine ass when I was looking at disposable razors (because apparently they drive men mad with unrestrainable desire.)  Just, no.  

Here’s a fun example from California, although this is technically the equally reprehensible 'trans panic’ defense: Several men beat a pre-op transgender woman with shovels, a frying pan, a can of food and their fists, hog tied her, and strangled her to death, solely because they had voluntarily engaged in sexual activity with her before finding out she still had male genitalia.  Halfway through the assault, they stopped to go and get shovels and a pickaxe, leaving her sitting on the couch.  They then had the presence of mind to drive her body four hours away into the Sierra Nevada mountains to bury (which, to be honest, is enough of a hint that they knew what they were doing was wrong to completely discredit any insanity defence.)  But, instead of being convicting them for a hate crime, the jury repeatedly deadlocked, and prosecutors eventually accepted a no contest plea to voluntary manslaughter for one of them.  It reminds me a bit of the Reddit post I read a while ago which could be summed up as 'guys, I keep fantasising about chicks with dicks.  Like, I’m not gay or anything, and they’re not dudes, they’re just chicks who have dicks.  Is that sick?  Does that make me gay?’  That post got a mixture of comments that were maybe 10% criticism, 50% veiled homophobia, 20% outright bigotry, and 20% a mix of trolls and/or commenters who had nothing to say but either 'lol dude u r a fag’/'no ur not gay I fantasise about ______’.  These guys were faced with this situation in real life, and they responded to this perceived threat to their status as Men with mindless violence.

One of the worst things about this for me is that it not only validates prejudice, it somehow implies that the victim somehow 'asked for it’, and all it takes is one homophobic juror (which, given general attitudes, is sadly almost certain) for it to work.  Wayne the builder is horrified by the idea that the fruit next door might fancy him, so what better way to show he’s not a fag than to acquit the poor victim of a pervert’s sexual advances?  I can’t see how it’s any different from Southern trials in the 20th century excusing the murder of black people based upon half-formed allegations, except for the fact that it’s impossible to tell who is and who isn’t straight/gay/trans/whatever, which opens up a whole new ugly side of it.  So, you had a fight with your best friend over some disrespectful transgression, hit him with a pan, and now he’s dead.  What to do?  I know!  Lie and say he grabbed your junk and winked at you!  They can’t prove otherwise, and there’s a whole defence out there just MADE for you!  

One example along these lines is the Joseph Mitchell Parsons case in 1987, although that had the added twist that he may have actually been the one who did the propositioning, and that he killed the victim in a fit of rage after his advances were unsuccessful.  While the trial outcome was the right one, it still sticks in my throat a little that so much of the trial was based around proving the victim had never shown any signs of being anything but heterosexual, while casting aspersions on the sexuality of Parsons himself.  I can’t help wondering if that had anything to do with the jury deciding to convict (especially, forgive me the stereotype, given that the trial took place in Utah.)  Did they convict because they saw the defence for what it was, or because they were disgusted at the idea of this homo pervert daring to slander the memory of this fine upstanding heterosexual citizen?

 Yeah, so, I’m very tired now, so I’m going to stop, but I’ll probably cover this more soon.  Then again I say that a lot, and then I don’t. 

 (And I was going to post a link to a great book about legal discrimination against members of the LGBT community, but my web browser is pitching a shit fit again and it keeps opening two dozen windows whenever I try to paste anything.)

(Incidentally, props to Wyoming for telling the defence lawyers where to go when they tried to use this defence in the trial of the killers of Matthew Shepard - a crime which the perpertrators themselves eventually admitted was a drug-fuelled robbery attempt gone wrong.)