Understanding Characteristics of Victims and Perpetrators of Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes in the United States

This article examines the effects of victim and perpetrator characteristics on the seriousness of anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) and anti-transgender (T) hate crime incidents, as there are limited and contradictory findings regarding characteristics that contribute to anti-LGB(T) hate crimes. This analysis uses a series of χ² tests to examine the importance of these characteristics using data from the 2003–2013 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and a partial proportional odds model for data from the 2012 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Hate Crime Data to examine differences in seriousness among LGB and T victims. This study finds that victim characteristics may not impact victimization in the ways suggested by previous studies. Additionally, the importance of offender race is largely impacted by whether the data are self-report data or police data.