“Gay panic” or “trans panic” is a common legal defense in many trials for violent crimes and murders where the perpetrator claims they were driven into a violent rage and temporarily went “insane” after discovering the sexuality or gender identity of the person they attacked, thereby allowing the assailant to ask for a lesser sentence. But a growing number of states have moved to ban the hate-filled and discriminatory legal defense. On March 31, Virginia became the 12th state to strip the defense from its legal playbook when Gov. Ralph Northam signed the recently passed bill into law.
The bill was introduced to the state legislature by Danica Roem, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing the state’s 13th district — and the first openly transgender person to be elected and seated in a U.S. statehouse.
Jo Yurcaba of NBC News has reported that “Roem said she first became aware of the defense after Matthew Shepard, a gay man, was murdered in 1998, and the men who killed him used the defense in court, according to the American Bar Association. Then, in 2004, one of the four men who were convicted of killing Gwen Araujo, a trans teenager, also used it.”
