The production of hate crime victim status: Discourses of normalisation and the experiences of LGBT community members

This article identifies discourses which serve to ‘normalise’ experiences of anti-LGBT (Lesbian,  Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) violence and prevent harmed LGBT persons from accessing  the status of ‘hate crime victim’. The phenomenon of normalisation is established in research  addressing homophobic, biphobic and transphobic violence, where it is understood fundamentally  as the rendering unremarkable of violent manifestations of hate due to their ubiquity. This article  interrogates the dynamics of the normalisation process. Drawing on a Foucauldian approach, we  explore normalisation as a disciplinary practice, through which people who have experienced  anti-LGBT violence are denied access to the status of hate crime victim. Through discourse  analysis of focus group data, we identify obstacles to identification and self-identification as a  victim grounded in the experience and anticipation of judgement both within society and the  LGBT community. Discourses against which the claims of LGBT people are adjudicated (re) produce cultural myths about hate crime, about anti-LGBT violence and about victimhood. While  this article acknowledges that the value of identifying as a victim is not uncontested, it also  asserts that the practice of normalisation, in denying this status, impacts on access to justice