Editor’s note: This story mentions threats of violence against the LGBTQIA+ community.
Before dawn on a Sunday morning in April, the bars in Austin had just closed. Joshua Ybarra started walking to his Uber. Then he heard an anti-gay slur hurled at him from behind. Three men leapt on him, pinning Ybarra to the ground and thrashing him so severely that he fell unconscious. The beating was so vicious that a friend of Ybarra’s “tried to defend him by covering his body on the ground, and she was also beaten by the attackers,” according to research from the nonprofit GLAAD, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. Even the alleged attackers’ own fraternity brothers tried to stop the assault, to no avail.
Ybarra’s assault was just one of 93 hateful incidents of anti-LGBTQIA+ bigotry in Texas tracked by GLAAD’s new ALERT Desk (Anti-LGBTQ Extremism Reporting Tracker). The tracking project — which went public last week — serves as a central hub to count both non-criminal and criminal acts of hate towards the queer community since 2022. Using a wide variety of sources, from mainstream news outlets to social media and verifiable firsthand accounts, the GLAAD ALERT Desk attempts to paint a comprehensive picture of the threats against the larger queer community. (Editor’s note: GLAAD is using the term “incident” over “hate crime” because many of the events did not meet the definition of a criminal act.)
And that picture is a grim one that reflects a disturbing rise in attacks nationwide. The lead at the ALERT Desk and GLAAD’s senior manager of news and research, Sarah Moore, said across the country from June 2022 to June 2024, “we saw a 112% increase in incidents just looking at that two year period.”
For Texas, that includes at least one murder.
In June 2023, Akira Ross was gunned down, friends and family say, “for being gay.” The 24-year-old was at a gas station in Cedar Park, outside of Austin, when a man came up to her and yelled gay slurs before shooting and killing her. “It was a hate crime. She gets out of the car, and he starts calling her gay slurs for no reason,” Ross’ father Anthony Hill told the Austin American-Statesman at the time. It was caught on video, and there were witnesses, according to a report from KXAN. The alleged gunman was arrested on murder charges, and his bond was set at $1,000,000. Ross’ death is the only killing in Texas that made it into GLAAD’s tracking, but it’s one of five physical assaults found in their database since 2022. In addition to Ybarra’s, which occurred in Austin, the other assaults took place in Bexar County, Houston, Austin, and McKinney.
Texas has the second-largest LGBTQIA+ population in the nation with 1.8 million people, according to a 2024 analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California. Last legislative session, Texas lawmakers filed 160 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills in 2023, the most in history according to Equality Texas, an advocacy group focusing on LGBTQIA+ rights. Seven of those bills became law, including one banning drag shows, which was later deemed unconstitutional. In 2023, there were substantially more anti-LGTBQ+ hate incidents in Texas than in 2022, KXAN reported previously. An average of 12.9 cases per month more than doubled to 25.9 cases per month the following year, per data from Equality Texas.
GLAAD’s new report also suggests some of the most vulnerable people are often the most victimized. Despite representing less than 3% of the U.S. population, 30% of the incidents targeted transgender or gender-nonconforming people.
Andrea Segovia, field and policy director for Transgender Education Network of Texas, blamed the rising number of incidents on Texas politicians’ numerous attacks on LGBTQIA+ rights.
“As a Texan, I know that our neighbors have our back … so when I see this [report] I know that people are inherently good, and the fact that this is happening is because the state government of Texas is continuing this crusade of cruelty,” she told The Barbed Wire.
“As we’ve seen acceptance for the LGBTQ community continue to rise … transphobia is the wedge issue that they can still play into and use that to try to divide the LGBTQ community or the American community at large,” Moore told The Barbed Wire. Data from the FBI shows violent crime is down 3% writ large, while hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people in particular increased nearly 18% in 2023 alone, according to the GLAAD report. That, of course, doesn’t include the dozens of anti-LGBTQIA+ crimes that go unreported, or those that don’t meet the threshold of a hate-crime by FBI standards, like the June hoax bomb threat that happened at an Austin Drag Brunch.
“Our communities don’t feel safe here. I mean in Texas,” TK Tunchez, producer of the Legendary Drag Brunch — who received the threat — told The Barbed Wire in August. “The glossiness of living in a progressive city is only actualized when there is institutional support.”
GLAAD’s data shows that across Texas there were seven incidents categorized under “bomb threat / shooting threat / swatting”; 13 described as “verbal or written threat / harassment”; and another seven considered “vandalism / property damage / theft.” The most incidents collected were efforts at intimidation through protests or rallies, and GLAAD counted 40 of those since 2022.
Ten of the incidents logged by GLAAD took place after Chaya Raichik, the notorious online hatemonger better known as Libs Of TikTok, made posts drawing attention to a person or place in the state. Those ten incidents include bomb threats that were lobbed at four Planet Fitness locations in March after Raichik highlighted their trans-inclusive locker room policies. GLAAD’s data shows a confidential tip helped them track protests that also occurred on three separate occasions outside of the chain’s locations in Houston.
The majority of the incidents happened in North Texas, followed by the Houston area, Austin, and then San Antonio. The data does not say if more people are just reporting in those areas or if it’s happening at higher rates in larger cities.
These numbers have real life consequences, especially when some LGBTQIA+ Texans may not have the resources to just pack up and leave. A study from the Trevor Project released in late September showed that anti-transgender laws nationwide caused a 72% increase in suicide attempts among trans and non-binary youth.
“You see such, such striking increases in suicide attempts,” Dr. Ronita Nath, vice president of research at the Trevor Project, told The Barbed Wire. She called the findings “surprising” but said the organization “double and triple checked the data around the analysis again and again.”
She added, “But this is what we were able to show.”
The Trevor Project did not have specific numbers on suicide attempts for Texas alone but did count the state in their findings because of the sheer number of anti-trans laws and policies in our state. With the start of the state’s 2025 legislative session just three months away, and anti-trans policies spear-headed by the Texas Attorney General already ramping up, it’s alarming to say the least. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged schools to “create safer and more supportive environments for transgender and questioning students,” after a first-of-its kind study from the government showed that 3% of U.S. high school students identify as trans — and that one out of four students experienced violence at school or missed school due to safety concerns.
“We’re going to see higher suicide rates among this group,” said Dr. Nath. If lawmakers believe they’re protecting young people, they’re failing. “It’s actually, very much doing the opposite,” Dr. Nath told The Barbed Wire.
And Segovia, at GLAAD, said that trans people are “frustrated” by the federal government’s inaction over these legislative threats. “Every time they do something to harm trans people, so many other people get harmed outside of people who are trans,” she said. “At what point does somebody say, ‘This is such a gross abuse of power’?”
Queer and trans Texans need more support to survive and thrive, Segovia said. Changing outcomes can be as simple as having “a conversation” — speaking up when you hear or see anti-LGBTQIA+ bigotry. “Talk to your friend, you talk to your family. It doesn’t have to be a PSA, right? But somebody has to stop the motion that is occurring with transphobia,” she told us. “It’s physics, right? If nobody is stopping it, then it continues on, and it goes to your kids’ classroom, it goes to your school board, it goes to the state legislature. It goes on and on and on.”
“LGBTQ Texans are a vital part of the Lone Star State. We are all races, ethnicities, religions, classes, ages and backgrounds,” said Jacob Reyes, GLAAD’s Texas representative. Hate that targets LGBTQ Texans targets us all.” He says their new tracking system will ensure people will feel safe reporting incidents and don’t feel comfortable engaging with police — especially since victims may fear retaliation, fear being forcibly outed, or may struggle with the fraught relationship their community may have to law enforcement. Reyes said he hopes “we can end this hate for good,” in part, “by elevating our stories across the state.”
In the face of such widespread bigotry, Segovia said she is inspired by the numerous LGBTQIA+ Texans — including her own nonbinary child — who continue to seek queer joy everyday by living their lives proudly.
“Trans people are literally the definition of somebody you can’t put into a box,” she said, adding that watching trans people come out — and into their own — gives her hope.
“I just don’t want trans Texans to lose hope, right?” Segovia added. “Because we’re standing our ground. We’re fighting back, and we’re not going to stop. Because trans people deserve good things, deserve nice things, deserve equality and equity in the state that they call home.”
Correction: This story’s headline previously called the 93 incidents “hate crimes,” but some did not rise to the level of criminal acts. The Barbed Wire regrets the error.
Editor’s Note: If you’re seeking mental health support for LGBTQIA+ youth, call or text the Trevor Project’s 24/7 support line at 866-488-7386. For peer support run by and for trans people, call the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860. You can also call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.