Listen to this note:
Hate crimes against people in the LGBTQ+ community have been steadily and alarmingly increasing; data reported to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) shows that between 2022 and 2023 there were 405 such events, motivated by sexual orientation bias, an increase of 3.6 percent compared to the previous year.
At the same time, reported hate crimes against LGBTQ+ communities continue to rise at alarming rates despite the fact that, according to some,