This indepth survey is the first statistically significant national survey of its kind, and reveals the extent of abuse facing many of Britain’s 3.6 million lesbian and gay people on a daily basis.

Stonewall, supported by the Home Office, carryied out the research after the conviction of two men for the homophobic murder of Jody Dobrowski in June 2006. The British Crime Survey currently fails to identify or quantify homophobic crime.

Amongst their findings are that 1 in 5 were victims of a homophobic hate crime or incident in the last three years; 7 in 10 did not report hate crimes or incidents to anyone; A third of lesbian and gay people alter their behaviour to not appear lesbian or gay as a way to prevent being a victim of a hate crime.

Given that this is 2008, the findings are a sobering and sad reminder that as far as we have come, there is still a long way to go to be seen as equal within mainstream society.

The full report can be downloaded from the Stonewall website at http://www.stonewall.org.uk/about_us/16.asp

Mike O. BQueer.com