Virginia became the twelfth state to ban the so-called “gay/trans panic” defense used in court by defendants who claim they were prompted to commit a violent act against members of the LGBTQ community, NBC News reports.
The use of the defense was first publicized during the 1998 trial in the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay man killed by two men who claimed they were angered and scared when Shepard flirted with them while they drove him home from a bar.
The legislation was written by Danica Roem, a trans state legislator, who was prompted to introduce the bill by a letter from an LGBTQ teenage boy.
“He’s out, and he sent me an email asking me to pass this bill, and I came to realize that in 2021, my out teenage constituents are living with the same fear that I did in 1998, after Matthew was killed, and that I did in 2002 after Gwen Araujo was killed,” Roem said. “And you think of how many other people will stay closeted because they have a fear of being attacked, let alone all the other fears that a closeted person who wants to come out has.”