Abstract

During the past fifty years, scholars have identified the following four ways that criminal defendants in the United States have used gay and trans panic defenses in murder cases involving victims who were gay men and transgender women: (1) insanity, (2) diminished capacity, (3) provocation, and (4) self-defense. While scholars have studied the first three defenses for gay men, little scholarship exists about the gay panic cases involving claims of self-defense. Additionally, there is a paucity of research regarding the trans panic defense. To address these empirical gaps, this research note uses open-source methods to study similarities between 99 homicide cases that occurred in the United States where criminal defendants made a gay or trans panic argument.

摘要

在过去的 50 年中，学者们已经确定了以下四种方式，即美国刑事被告在涉及男同性恋和跨性别女性受害者的谋杀案中使用同性恋和跨性别恐慌辩护的四种方式：（1）精神错乱，（2）能力下降，（3）挑衅，（4）自卫。虽然学者们研究了男同性恋者的前三种辩护，但很少有关于同性恋恐慌案件涉及自卫主张的研究。此外，关于跨性别恐慌防御的研究很少。为了解决这些经验上的差距，本研究报告使用开源方法来研究在美国发生的 99 起凶杀案之间的相似之处，其中刑事被告提出了同性恋或跨性别恐慌论点。