Based on federal statistics and his own soon-to-be-published research, Dr. Gregory Herek reports that hate crimes hit one in five adults who belong to sexual minorities. Among the findings:
- 13% of respondents said they had been hit, beaten, physically attacked, or sexually assaulted because of their sexual orientation.
- 15% had been robbed or had their property stolen, vandalized, or purposely damaged. (Combining these two groups, 21% had experienced either violence or a property crime.)
- 14% said someone had tried to attack them, rob them, or damage their property, but didn’t succeed.
- 23% had been threatened with violence.
You know I got to thinking that if being gay was a choice why would anyone want to be subjected to all the hate and bigotry this world offers the GLBT community?
Or is violence a veiled attempt to make us all straight???
Ken,
clearly you haven’t been paying attention.
We all chose to be gay when Daddy made Mommy cry and we chose to be “me” rather than “man”.
Or some such blithering nonsense
You make me laugh Timothy. One of the reasons why I like you so much! 😉
And by no means when I laugh do I infer that the topic at hand is laughable. It’s veery sad. And true. I went through violence while I was in school. Kids can be very cruel. And mental violence is just as bad as physical violence. I was told by a school teacher while I was in 8th grade that I didn’t like sports because I didn’t have a dad. Huh? If that is so, then they need to tell those gay men that love to play and watch sports and that didn’t have dads that they are doing it all wrong. Sheesh!
I was bullied all across junior high to senior high.
I caught up with one of my aggressors a few months back. Part of the conversation went something like this, as long as I can remember:
Me: I still wonder why you bullied me when we were young.
Him: Well… you were so… yucky! Anyway, I cannot believe you are a girl now!
Me: This is who I am. You would and should have noticed since we were young, it should not be a surprise to you.
Him: Well, erm, I was hoping, even till now, you would at least TRY to be a boy. I mean, that was why we whacked you last time. We were hoping to see the boy in you come out!
YukiChoe, that is so sad. Did he ever apologize or just chalk it up to “being a kid?”
Neither. But at least, he now express his utter disgust of my ‘insanity’ verbally, not physically. : )