Do you worry about hate crimes?

[FoxLocke]

I read on the internet where a derranged wannabee Nazi walked into a Massachusetts gay bar and injured three patrons with a knife and gun. Fortunately, none of them were severely injured. Several of the men were able to wrestle him down and take away his weapons. He later fled but was apprehended(I believe).

 

Do you ever worry about your personal safety as an openly gay person? That is onething that I have worried about in the past. Many people see it as socially acceptable to take out their anger and hostility on gay men and women.

[pianoguy]

No, not really. Why?

[hosswhispra]

I read about the attack in the Mass. bar on CNN; it's absolutely atrocious. I am not gay and I have thought to myself the following: What would it be like to live in a world that was 'reversed'---i.e. not being gay, but living in a gay world. That puts everything into perspective for me--gay people face many unfair challenges.

 

FoxLocke, I believe that one should be able to love (or marry) whomever they want to love (or marry)--and not be persecuted for it.

 

hosswhispra

[serve_the_people]

I am not gay, but when I was in high school lots of people thought I was gay, and I constantly lived in fear. It was terrible. Every day I went to school worried about what people would do to me. Yes, and I am not even gay !!!

[Erk]

I don't really worry, but sometimes I think about it. But I'm just a 14 year old right now, so I wouldn't expect anything bad happening right now.

 

I sometimes feel paranoid of the thought that one day someone is going to just bomb some gay bar or something like that.

[Tigris]

There's no point in worrying about something that might not happen! Every day we take chances!

 

We could be crossing the road and get 'run over', etc. On the other hand look at 9/11 and the London Bombings!

 

Just live each day as it comes.

[annie24]

I think it would be good if everyone took self-defense classes and kept pepper spray with them.

[Cloud802]

I keep my Ax on hand, which is just as good as pepper spray ^_^. All kidding aside I seriously worry about getting bashed on sometimes. Every day I get ridiculed for who I am, where I go on the internet, the things I do that are 'girlish'. I've even gotten in a couple of fights with people who don't like the look of me, they know I'm bi so they turn against me.

 

Why, just the other day some punk blocked my locker, and I had to resort to self defense because he started hitting me, I didn't beat him up or anything, didn't have to.

 

Our school also has a gay straight alliance, and almost every other time we have a meeting we end up wrestling down some protestor before he hurts someone. I live in a small town where prejudice is high, so I have to deal with this almost every day, people call me names and cuss me out because I like my hair long.

 

I beat someone in jogging and they think it's not fair that the 'girly-man' is faster than them.

 

It's really a sad world we live in, yet I go on.

[Prufrock06]

I feel like the hate crime cases that you mention are so rare and so extreme that I don't take them into consideration when going about my daily life. Of course, there's a big difference between the occurrence of violent hate crimes and more generalized hate speech or verbal assault. But am I worried about losing my life or getting physically hurt because of my sexuality? I would have to say rarely...if I were to be concerned about anything, it would be about being made fun of or called out with a variety of tasteless names.

 

Just make sure that the company you keep and the people you surround yourself with aren't judgemental or closed-minded and you'll be fine.

[FoxLocke]

I hold a brown belt in Taekwondo and carry pepper spray with me. So, I feel, that I can protect myself if I have to.

 

However, this kind of stuff is really creeps me out. Because there are many people, where I am from, who openly talk about beating up people for their sexual orientation.

 

So whenever I see something like this or a Matthew Shepard incident it kind of makes me pause and ponder.

 

I keep my Ax on hand, which is just as good as pepper spray ^_^. All kidding aside I seriously worry about getting bashed on sometimes. Every day I get ridiculed for who I am, where I go on the internet, the things I do that are 'girlish'. I've even gotten in a couple of fights with people who don't like the look of me, they know I'm bi so they turn against me.

 

haha, I don't carry an ax or anything, but I can relate to that. When I was in highschool I actually had people walk up to me and TELL ME they were going to kick my A__. And when I used to live in dorms one of my gay friends used to get derranged phone calls from these fraternity members who threatened him with violence routinely. It got so bad that he dropped out of school...

 

Not saying to go around paranoid(because I don't). But those are things that make me really think.

[Imaginary]

I hold a brown belt in Karate

 

Anyways, I don't really worry about hate crimes, since they aren't really any open gay people around here. (But I bet you ten dollars that if that changed, there'd be a quite a bit of hate crimes going around...) But people get prosecuted for other things... so it's not like all heads would turn to the gays...

 

BTW, just out of pure curiosity, how long do you keep your hair, Cloud? since I also keep it long... for a guy, but I've been really wondering when you "cross the line" that some people tend to draw.