1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Gay and Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act of 2018 . 2. Findings Congress finds that— (1) the American Bar Association has urged the Federal Government to take legislative action to curtail the availability and effectiveness of the gay panic and trans panic defenses, which seek to partially or completely excuse crimes such as murder and assault on the grounds that the sexual orientation or gender identity of the victim is provocation enough for the violent reaction of the defendant; (2) gay and trans panic legal defenses, which continue to be raised in criminal proceedings in Federal courts across the United States, are surprisingly long-lived historical artifacts, remnants of a time when widespread public antipathy was the norm for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (referred to in this Act as LGBT ) individuals; (3) gay and trans panic defenses characterize sexual orientation and gender identity as objectively reasonable excuses for loss of self-control, and thereby illegitimately mitigate the responsibility of a perpetrator for harm done to LGBT individuals; (4) gay and trans panic defenses appeal to irrational fears and hatred of LGBT individuals, thereby undermining the legitimacy of Federal criminal prosecutions and resulting in unjustifiable acquittals or sentencing reductions; (5) the use of gay and trans panic defenses is entirely incompatible with the express intent of Federal law to provide increased protection to victims of bias-motivated crimes, including crimes committed against LGBT individuals; (6) continued use of these anachronistic defenses reinforces and institutionalizes prejudice at the expense of norms of self-control, tolerance, and compassion, which the law should encourage, and marks an egregious lapse in the march of the United States toward a more just criminal justice system