Gay and trans panic defense

Rare card · No. 63848

The gay panic defense or homosexual advance defense is a strategy of legal defense, where a heterosexual individual charged with a violent crime against a same-sex attracted individual claims they lost control and reacted violently because of an unwanted sexual advance that was made upon them. A defendant will use available legal defenses against assault and murder, with the aim of seeking an acquittal, a mitigated sentence, or a conviction of a lesser offense. A defendant may allege to have found the same-sex sexual advances so offensive or frightening that they were provoked into reacting, were acting in self-defense, were of diminished capacity, or were temporarily insane, and that this circumstance is exculpatory or mitigating. The trans panic defense is a closely related legal strategy applied in cases of assault or murder of a transgender individual whom the assailant(s) had engaged with, or were close to engaging with, in sexual relations, and claim(s) to have been unaware that the...

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