ABSTRACT
The further limits of discounting the role of perpetrator masculinity in ‘hate’ attacks have been evident in the controversy regarding the ‘homosexual advance’ defence. In the 1990s and afterwards, activists and commentators in a range of nations voiced concern about the status and impact of this defence in criminal trials of assailants. The pattern and outcomes of these trials suggested that accused perpetrator claims about unwanted homosexual advances from victims, which both caused and necessitated retaliatory violence, had been used with significant effect.
