AUSTIN (KXAN) — Statewide political advocacy organization Equality Texas responded to an uptick in anti-LGTBQ+ incidents each month in 2023 compared to 2022, officials told KXAN this week.
It comes as leadership said they are preparing for additional LGBTQ+-related bills to be filed in the upcoming legislative session, beginning in January. That session will come on the heels of the 2023 session, where lawmakers filed 141 bills — a historic high — related to the LGBTQ+ community.
Chloe Goodman serves as Equality Texas’ constituent services manager, fielding incidents and support requests across Texas. In 2022, Goodman said the organization had an average of 12.9 cases per month staff took intake on. By 2023, the average came to about 25.9 cases per month.
“We generally see an uptick around Pride just because we’re more visible and have more going on,” they said. “But in 2023…we had a spike of 46 cases in September, which coincides with a return to school.”
Among those cases, Goodman said there’s been a strong concentration of them involving Texas schools. Some incidents relate to targets against educators, while others include students dealing with varying degrees of harassment or bullying at school.
Overall, though, they added these incidents aren’t only school-specific. Some happen in Texas communities like homeowners associations, where residents reported being prohibited from displaying pride flags on their property.
In Austin, the city’s Austin Against Hate community dashboard also tracks hate crime-specific incidents, including anti-LGBTQ-related crimes. Since 2017, the dashboard has collected 191 reported hate crimes. Those are broken down by year as:
- 2017: 14 reported hate crimes
- 2018: 17 reported hate crimes
- 2019: 12 reported hate crimes
- 2020: 24 reported hate crimes
- 2021: 26 reported hate crimes
- 2022: 43 reported hate crimes
- 2023: 51 reported hate crimes
- 2024 YTD: 4 reported hate crimes
Equality Texas outlines a host of community resources on its website, including support and crisis headlines, LGBTQ+ centers, legal and assistance resources as well as programs centered around LGBTQ+ youth and behavioral health services. The organization also has a support request form, where Texans can submit anti-LGBTQ+ incidents they’ve experienced or witnessed.
More information on Equality Texas and its work is available online.
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