Possible Triggering: Violence against butches.

[Converse]

Originally Posted by Merlin

We call it gay bashing here.

Have you ever been assaulted for the way you look/being gay ?

Touch wood no-one has ever laid a finger on me (one of the benefits of passing ) but I feel like I am living on borrowed time.

Yes of course, all of the verbal assaults, the majority of which have happened when I’ve been with a Femme- I have never fully understood why, perhaps others have thoughts on that.

And of course the bathroom sagas of boyfriends waiting for me to come out after their girlfriends have told them about the “freak” they saw inside. Then an incident that started with a comment about my tie, as I stopped at a gas station late one night, that led to a car chase and some dented panels, and twice a gun held to my head; one from the Femmes family member who would have been able to “deal with it” if I “at least looked like a female”, and the other from a stranger in a parking lot who didn’t like the look of me.

I’ve felt rage and fear and embarrassment because of attacks, the first I remember happened in high school when I was held down so I could be branded with my very first “label” courtesy of a lit cigarette – but I think of everything, two incidents stand out for me the most: the first came on a beautiful sunny afternoon when an older woman beat me with a bible as I tried to walk past; and the second were the words that came from a family member who while offering me ice for a blackened eye said “well what do you expect walking around looking like that”.