A transgender woman was shot and killed while sitting in her car in downtown Oakland last weekend, and it's taken a few days for local media outlets to catch up to the story. The case seems pretty obviously to be a hate crime, though police are not yet releasing a motive, and it's unclear if there are any suspects — though three other transgender women in the car at the time were witnesses. more ›

A man accused of assaulting and threatening to kill a trans woman on Valencia Street on October 31 has been released from custody, despite previously being held on $105,000 bail and facing hate-crime and terrorist-threat charges. 38-year-old Ricky Lamark Hodge has no known address and seems to be homeless, and on the night of Halloween near Valencia and 16th he approached a 43-year-old white transgender woman and said, "Fucking faggot, I don't like you. I'm going to kill you." He then allegedly hit the woman in the forehead, and when she saw him brandish a knife, she sprayed him with a can of mace (you go girl). Hodge fell to the ground, was taken to the hospital, and arrested. more ›

Slammed by noted activist and blogger Michael Petrelis as "a pathetic Sisters event more interested in being full of Kumbaya feelings and promoting two lame politicians," Saturday's Stop the Violence campaign, sparked by recent gay bashing incidents in the Castro, allegedly turned into more of a Dennis Herrera-for-Mayor-ish rally than an urgent call for action. Or not. more ›

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, along with Castro Community on Patrol and the Triangle Martial Arts Association, have scheduled a march for tomorrow, Saturday August 13th, to speak out against recent hate crimes in the Castro neighborhood. The march will start from Jane Warner Plaza at Castro and Market Streets at 3 p.m. From there, the group will move on to the site of last weekend's attack on a 52-year-old Santa Cruz man at Market and Sanchez before heading on to Blue Restaurant on Market Street where one of the Sisters was alsoattacked this week. The march to take back the neighborhood will end at Castro and 18th Streets. more ›

On Saturday night, three white males described as being in their "mid-teens" attacked a 52-year-old Santa Barbara man with a baseball bat near Market and Sanchez in the Duboce Triangle. The teens, who yelled homophobic slurs at the victim during the attack, fled with the man's keys and had not been found as of Monday evening. more ›

A 20-year-old transgendered woman who says she came to San Francisco hoping "there would be more safety than [she] found," fell victim to a publicly witnessed hate crime that occurred on a busy Friday night near the 16th and Mission BART Plaza. According to KTVU the woman, who asked to be identified as Mia, says she was attacked by two men who verbally harassed her, grabbed her smartphone and then brutally beat her. One witness says she heard the two men saying things like "Oh, I hate men dressed up as women" before the violent attack that sent Mia to the hospital to be treated for cuts and bruises. At least one other witness trailed the two suspects, helping SFPD make a swift arrest. more ›

Three Hayward men -- Shafiq Hashemi, 21, Mohammad Habibzada, 24, and Sayed Bassam, 21 -- pleaded guilty on Monday to shooting a 27-year-old man in the face with a BB gun. The incident happened on February 26 at 16th and Guerrero streets in the Mission District. It seems these pieces of human waste from Hayward came to SF with the sole intention of shooting men they assumed to be gay. How charming. more ›

19-year-old Puerto Rican teenager Jorge Mercado was stabbed, dismembered and beheaded last week by 25-year-old Juan Martinez Matos, and Matos has since confessed to the crime using the gay panic defense. Matos was allegedly out looking for women in an area known for prostitution, and he met Mercado, who was there dressed in drag. Upon discovering that Mercado was a man, Matos stabbed him, and proceeded to dismember the body in a rage. more ›

The definition of the federal hate crimes law might finally get expanded to include sexual orientation, as the House of Representatives approved the bill yesterday, which was an attachment of the $680 billion Defense Authorization Bill. The Senate could vote on the bill as soon as next week. Obama has said he will sign it into law -- unlike his predecessor, and Pelosi said this legislation has been on her agenda for two decades. more ›

On Saturday, a man entered a gay support center in Israel, killing two and injuring "at least 10." Most of the victims, according to BBC News, were young teens. more ›

A surge in anti-gay hate crimes has been reported in Santa Clara County for 2008, representing a three-fold increase over 2007. Both LGBT activists and the Assistant District Attorney for the county attribute the rise to the ubiquity of gay marriage news, and warring propaganda on both sides of the Prop 8 debate which occupied lawns, lampposts and headlines throughout the year. more ›

While not nearly as exciting as receiving top honors as the best city for tourists to walk slow on city sidewalks, or best city in which singles can hump, on Monday the FBI just awarded SF as the city with the largest reported number of hate crimes in 2006. According to Bay City News (via SF Crime): With a population of approximately 746,000, had a total of 94 reported hate crime incidents in 2006,... more ›