Michigan House Passes Ban On Gay & Trans Panic Defences

The Michigan state House has approved a ban on gay- and trans-panic defences. The ban passed 56-53 in a Democrat-led, party-line vote, according to ‘LGBTQ Nation’. It is expected to pass the Democrat-led state Senate, barring any procedural barriers.

While gay- and trans -panic aren’t officially legal defences against murder, defendants use them to help mitigate their sentences for murder. Michigan House Speaker Pro Tempore Laurie Pohutsky (D), who is bisexual, said the ban is especially necessary now considering how often it is used to justify violence against Black, transgender women. Most of the reported anti-trans murders each year are committed by men with firearms, some of whom accuse the murdered women of having “hidden” their trans identity before coming out and propositioning them.

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“The root of the matter, the whole defense is based in the thought that trans and LGBTQ folks are less human than other victims, which is why it’s so important to ban the use of the defense,” Pohutsky told UpNorthLive. “I think a lot of people don’t realize that it’s a problem, but I think that’s because they don’t realize how vulnerable the community has been up until recently.”

The bill will now head to the state Senate where Democrats hold a 20-18 majority. Most bills in the Senate can become law through a simple majority vote, but procedural manoeuvring can result in some bills being referred back to a committee or needing a two-thirds vote to pass.

Gay and trans panic defences have been banned in 16 states. Both the American Bar Association and the National LGBT Bar Association advocate the banning of these defences nationwide. Democrats introduced such a bill in the U.S. Congress in 2023, but it’s unlikely to become law due to Republican opposition.

These bans don’t prohibit queer panic defences from being used in court. Rather, they require judges to read instructions telling jurors to “ignore bias, sympathy, prejudice or public opinion in making their decision.” The bans also educate district attorneys’ offices about queer panic strategies and how to prevent queerphobia from affecting trial outcomes.

‘Hornet’ reported that defence lawyers will use such defences in hopes of getting first-degree murder charges reduced to second-degree (non-premeditated) murder or even manslaughter (a murder caused without deliberately lethal or malicious intent).

The gay panic defense (and its twin, the trans panic defense) was invoked in the trials following the 1993 murder of trans man Teena Brandon, the 1995 murder of Jenny Jones guest Scott Amedure, the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, the 2008 murder of 14-year-old Larry King, and the 2016 slaying of 32-year-old Daniel Spencer. Spencer’s murderer, his 69-year-old neighbour James Miller, received only six months in jail and 10 years probation for stabbing Spencer to death after he allegedly tried to kiss Miller.

Critics of such defences say that they essentially blame LGBTQ+ people for their own murders by claiming that they provoked their attackers. They also seek to play off societal queerphobia while reinforcing and promoting negative stereotypes of queer people as sexual deviants and predators.

David McConnell, the author of American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men, says the gay panic defence is also sexist, a cover for toxic masculinity, and just a defence for attacking already vilified second-class citizens:

“’Gay panic’ is not and shouldn’t be a special category. It can be upsetting for men to be the object of unexpected, unwanted desire, but it can be upsetting for women, too, and they have to deal with it much more frequently,” McConnell wrote. “As a legal defense, it’s certainly a cop-out. It’s complete bulls**t … The real issue is that when we say ‘gay panic,’ we put the focus on the group that’s been victimized and not on the source of the violence, which is really the nature of masculinity itself.”

Read related myGwork articles here:

Virginia Enacts Landmark Bill Banning LGBT+ “Panic” Defence

Oregon’s Out Governor Signs Bill Banning Gay & Trans “Panic” Murder Defence

Washington D.C. Bans Gay & Trans “Panic” Defences

Courts In 39 American States Still Admit The ‘Gay-Panic’ Defence