Heteronormativity and the inverted relationship between socio-political and legislative approaches to lesbian, gay and bisexual hate crime

The Republic of Ireland is under growing pressure to enact hate crime legislation in line with several of its European counterparts, including the UK. The island of Ireland is unusual in that Northern Ireland has had hate crime legislation in place for several years whilst across the border in the Republic, virtually no laws exist to recognise or address crimes based on prejudice or hostility. Useful and symbolic as it can be, criminalisation is often critiqued as warranting a criminal justice response to what may be social - and potentially preventable - issues. The prejudices which are integral to discerning a crime as being motivated by hostility are not innate; they must be somehow learnt and learnt in response to the socially constructed identity which they target. Alternative socio-political (or socio-cultural) approaches to address the prejudices informing hostility against lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) communities have focused on preventative awareness-raising, political engagement. Most recently, socio-political assimilation has been through enhanced legal rights on par with heterosexuals; gains made in relation to marriage equality, healthcare, parenting and employment (in some parts of the UK) are to be commended, yet prejudice remains. Even after a decade of hate crime law, the number of people victimised as a result of their sexual identity remains high and prosecutions low. This chapter evaluates the impact of heternormativity on socio-political and legislative approaches to LGB hate crime to evaluate the efficacy of such approaches in light of the context in which they are situated and what lessons can be imparted to those seeking to implement similar measures.