Anti-LGBTQ hate crimes up in CA, AG report says

by John Ferrannini

Just days after appearing in San Francisco’s LGBTQ Pride parade, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that hate crimes against gay men, lesbians, and trans people all rose last year.

The numbers came as part of his office’s annual report non hate crimes, which was released Tuesday, June 27. Bonta blamed “racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and destructive language” for the uptick.

See page 2 >> member Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the former House speaker, and the city’s mayor, London Breed – and the many more community members and allies like LGBTQ bankers, bureaucrats, first responders, service workers, and indeed people of all occupations, who make the Bay Area work day-by-day.

The parade is now in its 53rd year, although it did not take place in 2020 and 2021 due to the ongoing COVID pandemic. It – along with Pride parades nationwide this month – commemorates the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in Manhattan, New York, which in June 1969 stood at the beginning of the movement for LGBTQ civil rights in the United States. New York City held its parade the same day as San Francisco.

One of the parade’s community grand mar- shals, Honey Mahogany, a trans nonbinary person who is chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, told the Bay Area Reporter that though she’s been in many Pride parades over the years and has hosted the main stage at Civic Center Plaza with Sister Roma for the past five years, “being a grand marshal this year in particular feels really special.”

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