These are truly awful stories and I wish that nobody had to go through things like this.
Thank you for sharing your stories. I read every post from beginning to end and I am sad. 
Could be worse.
This thread deeply saddens me.
It makes me ashamed to be a human.
It makes me ashamed to be straight.
It does not make me ashamed of my friends that happen to be gay.
What’s your point? Or do you just enjoy devaluing everyone’s experiences in this thread?
Esprix
Judging from Blackeyes’ posting records, I’m giving him/her the benefit of the doubt and assuming that s/he meant that there are a lot of people who aren’t around any more to post in this thread.
Hey man, I have a right to be in these threads too. I’m just saying things could be worse around here; it’s not as bad as some people say. Few of us experience these levels of gaybashing on a real daily basis other than verbal harrassment; but that’s little different than most instances of teasing and name-calling for anyone. Sure it’s all motivated by hate, but sometimes you just have to accept that people can be assholes, but not every straight person is, and just deal with it.
There’s plenty of good, gay-friendly people out there and a lot more who are just indifferent; a lot’s changed since Stonewall. IMHO, we could do with a little bit less of the martyr crap. Not that there aren’t martyrs, I’m not denying that, but too often people have that syndrome.
A bear in a leather man thong with chaffs, a collar, shaved chest and a sun bonnet with an adorable neckerchief nearly having sex with another beare in an Indian chief costume is more likely to get the public’s scorn rather than pity and sympathy. Not saying don’t go outside with your boyfriend and especially not keep it to yourself, but a lot of queers don’t seem to realize it works better if you tone down the flamboyance a little bit and cut the whining.
Yeah, I’m devaluing everyone’s experiences here. Now excuse me while I trace my finger over the word in my scar for a few minutes.
What!?!!
But Blackeyes, what you’re missing here is that the original question posted that started this thread is “What is gay bashing like?”
The question wasn’t “What’s being name-called like” or “What’s it like being taunted” or “how do you feel when you’re laughed at?” Even though those experiences have been related here as well.
The thread pertains to the real, honest to god shit that happens to us out there in the real world. Yes, you’re right, the kind of violence that’s depicted within this thread doesn’t happen to everyone every day. But it does happen every day to someone, somewhere.
So, since I want to put this as gently as possible, kiss my flamboyant, whining ass. This fag ain’t lookin’ for sympathy, honey.
I withdraw the benefit of the doubt. Kiss my flamboyant ass.
I suppose women who wear mini shirts are asking to be raped? Good god Blackeyes, blaming the victim to excuse the perpetrator is now recognised to not be a very good thing in most places under most circumstances. Sure there are certain places where it is the done thing but this is a place designed to fight ignorance, not perpetuate it.
Nobody here is talking about every minute of every day or every interaction, just answering the question in the subject line. There are plenty of threads around here that point out that our everyday lives really are just everyday lives but that was not the subject of this thread now was it?
I’m not gay, but I had a very bad time at school, simply because I was different (I’m not going to say how). I was bullied, teased, shunned, had few friends, etc. But I stuck to my guns and when it came to leaving at 18, a LOT of people came to me and said that while they didn’t particularly like me, neither did they dislike me and they really respected me for having the guts to stick to being me.
About two years ago, I was assaulted by a group of kids. They picked me because I was different. The aspect they chose was my teeth.
This sets me wondering: are some of the experiences posted here not similar? Were they picking on you as you first and then picking you out as gay? Or vice versa?
qts to answer your ‘wondering’ from my perspective only, there’s only been one time that I can think of in my life where the attack that was perpetrated upon me may have started as ‘routine’ high school hazing and developed in to a gaybashing.
Way back on the first page of this thread, last September, I partially related the story of how I had been assaulted in the school’s shower room by three big guys and a bar of soap. Yes, these three and probably three or four others in their little circle were well known for making trouble for any number of people that didn’t fit their ideal of what a ‘man’ was supposed to be. They were routinely known to beat up smaller kids, kids in theater club, kids in the band, kids in chess club, kids who smoked dope, kids who like Star Trek too much and so forth. Basically, if you weren’t a dyed-in-the-wool jock, you were a possible target of their wrath.
Now, that said, I can tell you that in high school, I was involved in drama and band and such. But I also hung out with the motorheads and plenty of the jocks. I was ON the JV football team, for crying out loud - maybe that’s what made them hate me worse than most, I don’t know. See, the guy I had been hanging out with after school was on the baseball team. So, you see, we had a situation where two boys who could be classified at least partly as jocks were apparently flying in the face of the “jock code” or whatever.
I hadn’t even really been noticed by these three until word started getting around that I was seeing this kid. He, by the way, suffered a beating at the hands of these guys as well shortly after my “lesson.”
The bruises and bleeding and such that I suffered at the hands of these three were very clearly because of my relationship with the baseball player. The pricks made this very clear the moment I was cornered in the locker room and as I was being carried int he showers where I had just come from. When you’re being held down tight on the hard, cold tile floor of a shower room while the biggest guys of the three is lying on top of you, ramming a bar of soap into your anus while saying things like “I’ll bet Tony never made you feel like this, huh faggot?” and “You loose-ass fags don’t even feel something this small, do you?” you get the point pretty quickly. When the assualt goes on for twenty odd minutes, you absolutely get the point. When you’re trying to explain what happened to the ER doctors (who are concealing their laughter, to boot) you really, really get the point - and it stays with you for a while.
So, yeah, I guess you could say that in this case the assault on me may have been born in the germ of an idea that I was “different” than the perperators, sure. But I would have to say that it was becasue I was “different” in a way that these guys just couldn’t stomach. I don’t think purple hair or something like that alone would have caused a problem.
Shit. I did the way wrong thing here. TVGuy, matt, I see your point. I’m sorry for being the blabbing, scatterbrained asshole.
Oh, Blackeyes, dear, you’re no such thing.
You probably didn’t catch the backstory: there was a thread right before this one started, claiming that gay-bashing was a thing of the past and people should stop whining. If you hadn’t seen the reason this thread started, you might jump to the conclusion you did.
Good call, there, Blackeyes.
:rolleyes:
Esprix
Moderator’s Notes:
TVGuy, matt_mcl, I understand you feel provoked. However, your comments are inappropriate to this forum, as both of you well know. Fortunately, we do, however, have a forum set aside for where they are appropriate, also as both of you well know. I suggest you make use of it.
Sorry, UncleBeer.
Thank you, Blackeyes.
Wow, though thread to have your first post in. Having a hard time thought’s together.
Not gay myself however the high school I attended did have an openly gay student (kills me I can’t remember his name). Anyway I could remember seeing him running away from some group or moving between lockers done the hall hoping to not be noticed. And I saw all this and it never really registered until one day I really thought about it, and I could not imagine going to school and having to do this everyday.
The next day after thinking about this I was getting ready for Football practice and I have forgot something in my gym locker. The football team had there on locker room. I had a gym locker also because I was also on the wrestling team. It was after school so I expected the locker room to be empty. So I am at my locker and I start hearing the usual terms anti-gay terms being spouted and didn’t think any thing of it at first (it the boy’s locker room happens all the time.) next I hear a thud of someone being slammed into a locker. So I walk over to see what’s happening and this guy is slamming the Gay student into the locks shouting “What you going to do now (insert insult here)”. So I walk right up be hind him and soon as he finished this line I shouted "THIS’
The guy turns around and as soon as he got around I decked him square in the face. It was a sucker punch but he fell straight to the ground on was pretty much out. I looked up at the poor kid who was being attacked and he still looked terrified. I think I may have nodded at him but he took off. I went and got the P.E. teach as the other guy was bleeding from his nose and mouth and was now lay in a pool of blood. A turn out his nose was broken and he chipped a tooth.
The funny part was when I had to come in with my mom and meet with the principal. He was already aware of the whole story but we had to have the meeting anyway. The principal was laughing though the whole meeting but in the end we agreed what I did was not the smartest thing to have done but I got off easy. I was suspended from school for one day. And the kid I punched never returned. I only talked to the other kid again briefly at end of my senor year. He sort of thanked me, he was never touched again while I was their as the students in school thought me and the rest of the guys I hung out with would do the same thing to them if they bothered him. However he was a year behind me so I don’t know how his next year at school went.
This was by far not the best solution to the problem. And if I had to do it over I would not have hit the guy. It was more of a response to all anger I was feeling from considering the guys situation from the night before. However I still dont regret what I did as I still think to myself what if I had continued to ignore the problem I probably would have done nothing that day and just left the locker room and not given it a second thought and that would have regreted.
P.S. No one bothered me either as my senor year in high school I was 6’4" 285lbs 
and had three friends at school who were bigger than me :eek:
-Fox
Fox, you’re a good person, and you did the right thing.
Esprix
I fear some may think I am taking light of their experiences, I promise I am not. At the same time I tend to be a positive person and I do my best to turn situations around - even those that seem fairly hopeless.
I am heterosexual and I grew up in white, upper-middle class suburbia. I have been floored repeadetly by the forms of racism I have heard. Thinking I “fit-in” with the status quo, peers and their families would not hesitate to make racial comments of all kinds. Raised to be independant and fair I never let a comment slide without countering it. At the same time I also could not turn away from ignorance. Instead I have made amazing friends who have said to me since that I prompted them to not only change but most importantly recognize their racism. Many people don’t even acknowledge that have racist tendencies.
Some people will hate no matter what and those we can not change. Others are simply ignorant and although they are wrong in their thinking I have found patience and good means of perspective go very far. Sometimes you just have to speak up with a positive attitude and an open mind.
Funny enough I have even found that some of the kids parents, though floored when I first spoke up, eventually turned around.