Currently, one legal strategy for a suspect in the District accused of a violent crime, including murder, is to blame the victim’s identity as an LGBT person.

It’s alternately known as the LGBT panic defense or the gay panic defense. The murder of Wyoming’s Matthew Shepherd more than 20 years ago is a prominent example: one of the men convicted of killing him claimed that Shepherd had made sexual advances, which resulted in a state of temporary insanity that drove him to murder the 21 year old. While it didn’t work in that instance, the LGBT panic defense has been successfully employed in a slew of other cases, according to The LGBT Bar.

These LGBT panic defenses are largely used in three ways: temporary insanity, self-defense, or provocation (the latter often refers to suspects learning their victims are transgender). So far, explicit bans of the LGBT panic defense have become law in six states, and legislation barring the defense will be implemented in two more states—Nevada and Connecticut—in October.

Now, two bills introduced at the D.C. Council this week could make the District the next jurisdiction to ban the LGBT panic defense. At-large Councilmember David Grosso introduced the Tony Hunter and Bella Evangelista Panic Defense Prohibition Act of 2019 from the council dais on Tuesday with six co-sponsors.

Named for two District murder victims whose alleged killers used the defense, the bill curtails using “a defense that is premised on bias against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals,” Grosso said during his introduction. “A defense that exploits bias simply should not be acceptable.”

Grosso had previously introduced similar legislation in 2017, which was aimed specifically at sexual and gender identity, but this new version of the bill goes one step further: it bars “any situation where an individual might seek to excuse their violent actions on the basis of another person’s identity,” Grosso said, referring to the 20 protected traits in the D.C. Human Rights Act, the city’s anti-discrimination law.

But his is not the only bill introduced at the D.C. Council this week aimed at ending the usage of the LGBT panic defense in the District. On Monday, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson also introduced the “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Panic Defense Prohibition Act of 2019.”

As the title of the bill suggests, Mendelson’s version is more narrowly targeted than Grosso’s, and does not include all 20 traits in the D.C. Human Rights Act.

“It is unacceptable for bigots to claim panic as a defense, as if the victim was at fault for the bias-related crime,” Mendelson said in a press release announcing the measure.

It’s somewhat unusual to have a councilmember introduce legislation that a colleague had previously introduced, but Mendelson’s office maintains that no slight was intended. The bills “are different,” says Lindsey Walton, Mendelson’s spokesperson. “The chairman specifically wanted to focus on LGBTQ rights.” Mendelson introduced it via the D.C. Council secretary rather than on the dais.

Local LGBT advocacy groups have been pushing for a ban of this kind of legal defense. The Rainbow Caucus, a group of 20 LGBT advisory neighborhood commissioners, has “mentioned this bill with every councilmember we’ve met with,” says Japer Bowles, a member of the caucus and commissioner of ANC1C07. “I’m glad that it’s getting a focus. Our concern is why this already isn’t something the council has taken up seriously.”

Based on Bowles’ work with a state legislative research firm, he says he prefers a bill that includes people’s names, as Grosso’s does. But he maintains that he supports both pieces of legislation.

Next, the bills go to the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, chaired by Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who has signed onto both of them. The committee will hold a hearing on the bills on October 23.

Bowles is glad to see momentum on the measures. “It seems like the law’s gonna change,” he says. “It seems like we’re going to get a bill passed, and that’s good.”