Gov. Ralph Northam has signed legislation that bans the use of what’s commonly known as the LGBTQ+ or trans “panic” defense — which means that people accused of violent crimes in Virginia will no longer be able to use the victim’s gay or trans identity as a defense in court.

The law, which Northam signed on Wednesday, makes Virginia the 12th state (including D.C.) to ban this kind of legal defense.

Defendants tend to use this defense a few different ways. In some cases, they claim that a victim’s gay or trans identity led them to a state of temporary insanity, which then drove them to commit an act of violence or murder. In others, the trans panic defense is used to bolster a claim of provocation — also known as a “heat of passion” defense — where a person accused of murder claims that they were so upset to discover that their victim was gay or trans that they completely lost self-control.

The most prominent use of the defense occurred in the case of the murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, who was beaten to death by two men in 1998. The men charged in Shepard’s killing claimed that he made sexual advances that led them to a temporary state of insanity.

Critics of the panic defense point out that it legitimizes violence against LGBTQ+ people — and particularly trans women of color, who face high rates of violence.

In an interview with the Transition Virginia podcast, Virginia Del. Danica Roem (D-Prince William) said she introduced the bill at the request of a 15-year-old LGBTQ+ constituent in Manassas Park. Roem said that in the process of putting together the bill, her staff found multiple instances in the commonwealth where the defense had been used.

“I wouldn’t have brought the bill forward if this was not a problem in Virginia,” she said.

But, Roem said, the legality of the defense in other states across the country remains a concern.

“There are unfortunately too many places throughout America … where a judge could hear that sort of transphobic or homophobic argument and think, ‘Yeah, I would have a similar reaction,’” said Roem. “That is extremely real.”

The D.C. region’s other jurisdictions have banned their defense or are on their way to banning it. In Maryland, a bill banning the panic defense is also making its way through the General Assembly — and advocates for the ban, according to Bloomberg Law, are hopeful it will become law.

A ban on the panic defense in D.C. will also go into effect in June. The legislation, approved by the D.C. Council in December and signed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser in January, was named after two local victims of violent crime—Bella Evangelista, a trans woman who was shot to death in 2003, and Tony Randolph Hunter, a gay man who died after he was attacked and assaulted on his way to a gay bar. Both of the men charged in the attacks tried to use the panic defense, the Washington Blade reported.

In 2019, Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Joe Kennedy, both Democrats from Massachusetts, introduced bills in both chambers of Congress that would ban the “panic” defense on the federal level.