Seattle Mayor Unveils Plan to Improve LGBT Safety

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has proposed a plan to make the city safer for LGBT people, with steps including enhanced services for LGBT youth, a law making all single restrooms in city buildings gender-neutral, and a public education campaign.

The plan, announced Thursday, is in response to an uptick in hate crimes in Seattle, which has come despite its reputation as one of the nation's most LGBT-friendly cities. The city has seen a 46 percent increase in reported anti-LGBT hate crimes in the first seven months of 2015. The rise may be due partly to increased reporting, but another cause may be backlash against advances in LGBT rights, Murray told reporters.

"As movement is made on an issue, there is backlash," he said, according to news website Seattle PI. Seattle "would not be the first place that has made progress only to see violence against the gay and lesbian community," added the mayor, who is gay.

Murray's plan, parts of which require City Council approval, is based on recommendations from an LGBTQ Task Force that was appointed in March.

The city will allocate $40,000 to Project EQTY (Elevating Queer and Transgender Youth), a program aimed at assuring that homeless shelters are competent in dealing with LGBT youth. Murray said the city will not create a separate shelter for these young people, Seattle PI reports.

"What we heard is they don't need to be separated out or segregated out," he said. "They needed people in current shelters with the training and capacity to help them." Danielle Askini, executive director of the Gender Justice League, also pointed out that an LGBT-only shelter would violate antidiscrimination laws, alternative paper The Stranger notes.

In other steps, the Department of Neighborhoods will use matching grants to support projects that promote LGBT safety, and various city departments will improve lighting and take other crime-prevention measures in the heavily gay Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Murray has submitted an ordinance on gender-neutral restrooms to the City Council, and the city will also launch a public education campaign on LGBT issues and evaluate the training that police officers receive concerning interactions with LGBT citizens.

Askini praised the work of the mayor and the task force, while saying more could be done to address the need for greater access mental health and substance abuse treatment, which could help reduce hate crimes.

"We're in this mode [in Seattle of thinking], 'We're so liberal. We have gay marriage. We smoke pot.' But that doesn't match the violence people experience," Askini told The Stranger. "We can't just rest on our liberal laurels."