The SOS Homophobia association has chosen this May 17, World Day Against Homophobia, to publish its report on the attacks and acts of harassment committed last year against LGBTI people in France.
In this document, she deplores that the year 2020, "strongly marked by the Covid-19 epidemic", had "a significant impact on LGBTIphobic acts, leaving little escape for victims of violence" because of " containment measures, curfews, the development of teleworking, the closure of schools, places of culture and conviviality ”.
Thus, the proportion of physical attacks reported during calls remains the same as in 2019 (12% of cases), despite the two confinements, indicates this report, which is based on 1,815 testimonies received last year by the association and is accompanied by testimonies of victims of this physical and verbal violence.
But, "if the attacks still mainly arise in the public space, we note a drop in the number of cases in this context (36% in 2020, 48% in 2019), which is offset by an increase in cases linked to the neighborhood. (27% in 2020, 16% in 2019), and to the family or close entourage (23% in 2020, 14% in 2019) ”, details the association.
The latter adds that if "this violence most often takes the form of assault and battery (71%)", "13% of cases report rape or sexual assault".
"A strong feeling of unease and withdrawal"
In a report based on the complaints received by the police and gendarmerie services, the Interior Ministry estimated last week that homophobic or transphobic insults and attacks fell by 15% in 2020, while since two years, this figure was sharply increasing.
"The reduction in social interactions has also developed a strong feeling of discomfort and withdrawal into oneself, accentuating the vulnerability of LGBTI people", decrypts SOS Homophobie.
The number of minors reporting violence or discrimination has "exploded", also alarms the association, which indicates that this proportion of under 18s contacting its services "rose from 6% in 2019 to more than 20% in 2020 for situations in general of great distress (threat of eviction from the family home, rejection, humiliation, etc.) ”.
The suicides of a young student in Lille and another in Montpellier, two young transgender people, have already marked in recent months.
Another observation: this year of health crisis "has also had consequences on the advancement of the rights of LGBTI people", in particular with the postponement of the vote on the law on bioethics, which should allow the opening of access to assisted reproduction. (medically assisted procreation) to female couples and single women.
Paris, "LGBTQI + freedom zone"
The association also deplores in its report the content of this law “far from being satisfactory” because “it still refuses trans people to exercise their reproductive rights and creates a discriminatory filiation for female couples”.
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For this year 2021, SOS Homophobia also outlines in its report several objectives, among which, "the end of conversion therapy and genital mutilation of intersex people".
That same day, the city of Paris announced that it would declare itself an “LGBTQI + zone of freedom”, a symbolic gesture, imitating the European Parliament and organized in reaction to “the worrying decline in rights and repression” against towards sexual and gender minorities around the world.
At the next Paris Council in early June, Jean-Luc Romero-Michel, deputy mayor PS Anne Hidalgo in charge of human rights, integration and the fight against discrimination, will present a wish to declare the entire capital "LGBTQI + freedom zone", the acronym for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, shemales, queers, intersex.