States are finally moving to ban the homophobic ‘gay panic’ defence

Lawmakers in New Mexico took a step forward for LGBT+ people recently by advancing a bill to ban the so-called “gay panic” defence – a strange, backward legal idea that’s evaded the march of sexual and gender equality across the US with remarkable resilience.

In a nutshell, the gay panic defence is the idea that many heterosexual people can be triggered into violent, even murderous, reaction by an unwanted sexual advance from someone of the same gender – in another sense, that someone who murders a person based on their sexual orientation is not necessarily responsible for their actions.

This argument is not used as a defence in its own right, but as a complement to other defences such as temporary insanity, provocation, or self-defence. In an era where hard-won federal and state legislation treats property damage, violence and murder meted out to LGBT+ people as hate crimes, that the gay panic defence remains unbanned in most US states seems a remarkable oversight – but in some places, things seem to be changing.