ABSTRACT
This chapter explores further the affective dimensions of punishing homo/transphobia by reading emotion to show how and why homo/transphobic “hate” has become the subject of legislative and judicial attention in attempts to respond to the violence that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people face. It considers hate in the criminal and civil litigation in response to the murder of Brandon Teena. The chapter aims to trace how the hate directed towards LGBT people is recognised and refracted through pro-LGBT hate crime cases that express hatred towards homo/transphobes to remedy homo/transphobic injury and use this analysis to address the politics of hate in healing homo/transphobia. Hate crime legislation can serve as an emotional enactment to reaffirm social orders and police borders of social inclusion. LGBT demands for state sanctions against homo/transphobic injuries and hateful expressions are troubling because they conflate the elimination of inequalities with individual punishment.
