Gender Panic
(verb phrase)
The fear and revulsion some people experience when presented with someone who does not meet their expectations for gender, expression, identity or roles. This is often used in reference to ‘the gender/trans panic defense.” That is when a cisgender person assaults or murders a transgender person claiming that they ‘panicked’ when they found out the victim was trans. It is absolutely not a real thing. It is designed solely to excuse transphobia within the legal system.
So far, the following states in the USA that bans the use of this defense:
CA (2014), IL (2017), RI (2018), NV (2019), CT (2019), ME (2019), HI (2019), NY (2019), NJ (2020), WA (2020), CO (2020), DC (2020), VA (2021), and VT (2021).
e.g. The man on the news for the most recent transphobic murder was claiming the gender panic defense.
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