In a 1998 address, author, activist, and civil rights leader Coretta Scott King (the widow to Martin Luther King, Jr.) stated that: "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."

Sean W. Kennedy - was a 20 year old who was punched and subsequently died as he was leaving a club. On May 16, 2007, at about 3:45 am, Kennedy was leaving a local club in Greenville, South Carolina, when a car pulled up beside him, a man got out of the car, came around and approached Kennedy, called him a faggot and then punched him hard enough that his facial bones were broken, he then fell and hit the asphalt. This resulted in his brain separating from his brain stem and ricocheting in his skull.

In 2007, Ryan Skipper was stabbed to death in Central Florida because he was gay. In 2009, two men were found guilty in separate trials of butchering Ryan, and were sentenced to life terms in state prison. Prosecutor Cass Castillo and Circuit Judge J. Michael Hunter powerfully and explicitly stated in a Bartow courtroom that Ryan Skipper was murdered because he was gay.

Matthew Wayne Shepard - was a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyoming in October 1998. He was attacked on the night of October 6–7, and died at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, on October 12 from severe head injuries. During the trial, witnesses stated that Shepard was targeted because he was gay. Shepard's murder brought national and international attention to the issue of hate crime legislation at the state and federal levels.

On April 6, 2009, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11 year old child in Springfield, Massachusetts, hanged himself with an extension cord after being bullied all school year by peers who said "he acted feminine" and was gay.