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The AfterEllen.com Huddle: Our Stories of Homophobic Harassment

With all the major strides we take towards equality, sometimes backlash happens. Sometimes people are awful and angry, and take that fear out on total strangers. We know that this is a difficult subject, but have you ever faced anti-gay harassment on the street or in a public place? How did you handle it?

Marcie Bianco: Beside being kicked out of a bar in England with my lez friends there was a time-when I was much thinner and had a shaved head-that I was out on a run and some tweenage kids were like “What is it?” and I stopped and turned around and I yelled, “It is a girl, motherfuckers!” So, yeah, that.

Dara Nai: I’ve experienced far more racism than I have anti-gay harassment. In fact, I can’t remember ever experiencing homophobic grossness, but I’ve been called chink many, many times.

Erin Wilson: Thankfully I have never experienced any violence towards me because I gay. I have had plenty of stares and rude comments but none of that gets to me: I am more sad for that person than I am for myself. I will say being from a state where I could be fired from my job because I was gay, was more upsetting to me than a rude comment from an ignorant stranger.

Trish Bendix: As a femme, I tend to pass as straight in the heteronormative world we live in. But because my partners are more masculine, I get more negative attention when I’m with them. The only time I’ve ever been called a dyke was when I’ve been with a partner, and I was almost thrilled to have been seen as a lesbian that I wasn’t that upset about it. I guess it was because I didn’t feel too unsafe in the moment-it was a homeless man asking “Are you dykes?” in an oddly sincere way, like he just wanted to know. Anyway, I proudly said, “Yeah, so?!”

But then a few months ago, I did something against my better judgment and went to a house in the Hollywood Hills with my (straight) sister. She was visiting from Chicago and a male friend invited her over to his (male) friend’s house. My sister begged my girlfriend and I to go with her, and I thought it had bad vibes written all over it. My sister told us it was totally safe and the house was beautiful-we should really see it. It’d be fun! I didn’t want to assume the worst (#notallmen right?) and be a total pill so I finally agreed to go. It was around 10 p.m. and the house was clearly a party haven for 20-something privileged aspiring rappers who bragged about the women they had coming over to do things I will not repeat in this forum because I am a lady.

I could tell it was not going to go well as soon as they spoke about the women they knew and the highly sexual positions they put themselves in by just hanging around these dudes. So when they suggested we play Truth or Dare and immediately dared my girlfriend to “suck my titty,” I was more than uncomfortable and obviously we said HELL NO. When my girlfriend left the room, one of the “rappers” asked me, “That your boyfriend?” I said, “She’s my girlfriend.” “You always date women?” he asked. “Yep,” I said. “I’m a lesbian.” “So it’s for real then? It’s like that?” “Yep,” I said. “It’s like that.”

I told my sister and girlfriend it was time to leave. We’d been there less than an hour and the guys chided us for being no fun. Then my girlfriend and sister were downstairs and I was waiting by the door when the same guy came into the room and dropped his drawers with his dick out and said “Hey look at it. Just look at it. See what you’re missing.” I refused at first. “No thank you!” And he continued until I finally looked at him and said “I see it-nope, not missing anything!” And the rest of the group came back in the room as he pulled up his pants and I couldn’t get out the door fast enough. My sister, having no idea what happened, told me that as she left, he told her “My mission is to get your sister back on dick.” When we were safely in the car I told them what happened, and, for the first time, felt something close to what victims of any kind of sexual assault must feel. I started to curse myself for putting myself into a bad position-I should have listened to my gut and known this was a terrible idea. I had to remind myself that even if I did ignore my instincts, he had no right to do and say what he did, and that my being a lesbian isn’t some kind of challenge or threat to him-he’s the threatening one.

The incident shook me up. It was the first time I’d really had anyone insult me in such a disgusting way, and made me even more aware of the kinds of sexual violence and corrective rapes that lesbian women face around the globe that are clearly much more dangerous and on an even larger scale. I had the ability to leave the situation, whereas so many women do not. It was a reminder that even though I have the “privilege” of passing, and therefore receive less harassment on a daily basis compared to my butch/androgynous/genderqueer sisters, I am not immune to the bravado of men who think lesbianism can be cured with their (not even that big) penises.

Elaine Atwell: I’ve had the usual frat boys try and talk me out of my orientation, the irritating mosquitos of men asking if they could watch, and when traveling through the deep south, I’ve gotten some looks that let me know I needed to get the hell out of Alabama. But most violent discrimination I’ve ever witnessed was not directed at me.

My high school had a small but vocal population of the children of academics and doctors that gave it a more liberal bent than your average Appalachian small town. A handful of them observed the Day of Silence, in recognition of the bullying and harassment the students who were gay (or, just as bad, suspected to be gay) experienced. I didn’t participate in the Day of Silence after I saw what happened to those kids, the vast majority of whom were merely allies (although in this case, calling them “merely” allies disparages their extreme selflessness and bravery). I remember coming to school and seeing some parents holding signs outside, protesting the students who would be silent that day. Inside was worse, as gangs of teenagers formed circles around the silent ones and screaming “FAG, FAG, FAG,” constricting around them until they couldn’t move. I remember watching my guidance counselor open his mouth to say something, then close it and walk away.

Every time I ask myself how I didn’t know I was gay earlier than when I did, I remember those Days of Silence, and I think that some part of my brain was doing its best to keep me out of harm’s way.

Bridget McManus: In college my then girlfriend and I drove cross country from Rhode Island to California. We stopped at a Taco Bell in Oklahoma where the people behind the counter laughed at my girlfriend and I for having short hair and cargo shorts on. As my girlfriend looked at the menu I went to use the rest room and was told I couldn’t use it. The staff refused to wait on us because we were “dykes.” Instead of pitching a fit, we just left and drove to another rest stop.

Lucy Hallowell: Most of the cruelty I endured as a child was based on my appearance. While I am sure many saw my short hair and clothing choices as an indication of my gayness, I much more often have been taunted, teased, and ridiculed for being too masculine than I have for being gay. I can’t count the number of times I was told “wrong bathroom, kid” by an angry-faced adult in the women’s bathroom or asked “What are you?” by a kid at school. In middle school a group of my classmates, all boys, walked up to me. One particularly charming asshole gave me a disgusting smirk asked “Are you a Mounds or an Almond Joy?” I didn’t understand what that meant so they laughed at me for not knowing what I was before telling me “Almond Joy’s got nuts, Mounds don’t.” They strutted away, all filled with satisfied swagger and congratulatory laughter. I wished the earth would swallow me whole and then decided to grow out my hair.

Miranda Meyer: I’ve been lucky on this front; the worst I’ve really gotten, which wasn’t so bad, was being threatened with being asked to leave a nightclub. (Normally I would consider this very bad, but it happened in Syria, which is not exactly a place where it’s easy or common to be queer in any open way, so my baseline is different, if that makes sense.) This girl I had met and I were dancing together, and making out kind of a lot, and one of the bouncers kept sort of taking me aside and warning me that we were pushing it and to tone it down or he was going to have to take action. I really got the feeling he didn’t actually want to do anything but felt he had to. Meanwhile, my make-out companion was VERY, VERY DRUNK and therefore not really getting the concept of toning anything down. Nothing ultimately happened except that I very much felt others’ eyes on us and I ended up de facto in the position of trying to be responsible for this very wasted girl, but it was an odd situation all around. If a bouncer said anything like that to me in the US I’d be livid, but there it was more like we were getting away with something.

Kim Hoffman: Well. So. Okay. A few years ago, my ex-girlfriend was in town on leave from the army-we were in a major off period because LDRs can be way difficult and we quickly realized we were just so much better as friends. After a lot of weirdness from her end, I finally got a text one night she was in town that she was at her “uncle’s” house. I was sort of annoyed because it was after 10pm and I had that inner dialogue of like, “If I go, I have to change out of my pajamas, so, that puts me in a teenage Kim place all over again.”

Anyway, I decided to go. And as I drove toward a random drug store 45 minutes away to meet her so that she could take us in her car to his house, I started to get the most gut wrenching pit of my stomach feeling that something awful was going to happen. And like many of us, I didn’t stop, I just kept telling myself to chill the fuck out.

So, “uncle” is in quotes because I quickly learned he was no such thing, he was simply the father of her best friend from high school. His house was this weird ’70s shag pad (but with toys for nephews and nieces strewn about) and he kept trying to feed us more booze and pot, while he eyed my ex girlfriend up and down-she was in her fatigues. He mentions a dress she used to wear in high school, and how he’d love to “TAKE IT OFF WITH HIS TEETH.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and gave her a funny luck. When he went to the bathroom, I was like, “Um. Does he know you’re gay?” My ex was on the butcher, androgynous side like so many of my partners have been, where, I’ve totally 100% seen outward, homophobic hate spewed at them/us. But, this was different. He took us to a bar across the bridge from his house where he proceeded to get my ex girlfriend wasted. I stayed sober, because frankly, I was a complete ball of nerves-tunnel vision, sound going in and out. She kept trying to get me to dance with him. “Go! Dance with my Uncle! He’s fun. Go!” He would be, like, shimmying on the dance floor to “Santeria” and I couldn’t bring myself to join him, so finally he dragged her out there right as the song changed to a sexy slow jam and they started to….just get way closer. Too close.

Of course this drew the attention of the onlookers (a bunch of crisp, sunburnt middle aged Floridians with illustrations of fish on the back of their shirts) that were already eyeing us when we walked in. Dyke in her army uniform at a bar! Dyke in her army uniform at a bar! Everyone look! But the truth is, I had no idea what I was looking at anymore either. I couldn’t tell. Was she into him? No way. I mean. Yeah, he was running his hands through her hair and she was looking up at him smiling, but, this just COULDN’T BE. And in a flash, she darted through the crowd and pushed me toward the back door and as we flung out into the night, she fell into a patch of grass and wouldn’t let me get her up. When “Uncle” came out after us, he began to smile-as if he was pleased with this display. He was going to be her hero in shining armor and he lifted her up with little effort over his shoulders and carried her to the car. Two bouncers standing at the front of this bar were chuckling, “Look at that drunk army boy.” “Amateur.” The whole way back to “Uncle’s” house, he had Pink Floyd blaring and my ex was passed out cold in the passenger seat. My fists were clenched and I prepared for, I don’t know what. But when we pulled up to his house, he said, “I got this from here. You can go home.” I refused.

“I don’t know you. I’m not going anywhere.” He kept referring to my ex by her middle name. She changed her name to a more masculine sounding name when she came out, but he refused to acknowledge that and kept using her previous name. I was SO FUCKING PEEVED and when I saw his face change from smiley to scary, I went into survival mode. “Do you really think you can handle her? Do you REALLY think you can lift her up and take her over to your car and stop me?” He tried waking her up then and asked her, “Do you want to come inside and go to bed?” She mumbled yes. I then piped in, saying her name-not the one he kept using, “HEY, ___, I’m taking you home right now, OKAY?” She mumbled OK. But he didn’t give us a chance. He got out of the car and came over to her side and lifted her up and began walking inside. “You can come in too, if you want. I don’t care what you do.”

As soon as we got inside, he went into the other room and my ex grabbed me with as much sober strength I could ever see a plastered person muster and shoved us into the bathroom and locked the door. She looked me dead in the eye with her face glazed over, digging her hands into my shirt and said, “Get us out of here. Now.” I said okay and again prepared myself for I don’t know what. But we exited the bathroom and there he was, shirtless and chest hair out sitting on the couch with a big smirk on his face asking my ex girlfriend for a kiss and if she wanted to “go to the bed.” I told him we were leaving, as calmly and cooly as I possibly could. But I wanted to scream at him, and tell him to die. I had all these feelings, like this wasn’t his first go-around, that I was throwing a major wrench into his plans.

As we left, he winked at me and readjusted his crotch in the seat of the couch. I have no idea how I got her home that night. I have no idea how I was able to carry her from his couch to the car, or from the car into her house. Somehow all the adrenaline had me on a level I didn’t know existed in me. But you know what? I wasn’t going to let this man feel my fear. I wanted him to fear me. I wasn’t going to leave her there, not on my watch, motherfucker.

Have you been harassed for being lesbian, bi or queer?

Jenna Lykes Duggan: I, too, have had a lot of people shout or mutter “faggot” at me-whether I’m with my wife or alone. Which, like, I don’t get. At all. I often want to stop and ask them if they know what the word faggot means? ?»\_(Òâä)_/?»

One of the most upsetting things I can remember happening to me was back when my wife and I were just young pups in love (probably around 20 or so). I was in the emergency room because I was (and still am) an idiot who drinks too much and gets hurt, and she was there with me. I think she was either laying or sitting on the stretcher with me, her arm around my shoulders. I’m sure we were snuggled close, and we may have kissed a few times, but it was certainly not a crazy make out sesh by any means.

All of a sudden, a nurse came up to us and said, “I know you girls are young and in love, and that’s great, but there are children here.” I think I just stared at her, and she smiled and walked away. And I just remember being so sad, because I already was hurting and Steph was just trying to take care of me. Being queer was still so new to me, her words drudged up all my old Catholic guilt about being “wrong” or “bad,” but that nurse thought she was being nice.

And, on the flip side, here’s a real quick story that hopefully restores some faith in people for y’all: About a year ago, I was going to Home Depot in the middle of the day with some co-workers (don’t ask…). It happened to be (bow)Tie Tuesday at work, so I was looking pretty masculine/androgynous with my short hair, bowtie, and jorts. The Home Depot was in Virginia, so I was feeling more than a little self-conscious.

I had been wandering around by myself for a few minutes when an employee, a white, middle-aged man, walked up to me. I prepared myself for the worst, but all he did was smile at me and ask if I needed help in his southern drawl. I said no, thank you. And then, you guys, he told me he really liked my style! It was such a sweet little exchange, I’ll never forget it.

This got longer than I meant it to. In conclusion, some people are terrible and some people are great. The end.

Grace Chu: Yeah, I’ve mostly gotten racist comments. When you look at me, you don’t assume “gay,” but like Dara, I can’t hide my Asian-ness. The night my girlfriend and I had our first date and we got a little tipsy and made out in the street. A car of bro dudes drove by and whistled. Both of us flipped them the middle finger at exactly the same time; it was then when I knew we were destined for a second date.

Miranda Meyer: I’ve been lucky on this front; the worst I’ve really gotten, which wasn’t so bad, was being threatened with being asked to leave a nightclub. (Normally I would consider this very bad, but it happened in Syria, which is not exactly a place where it’s easy or common to be queer in any open way, so my baseline is different, if that makes sense.) This girl I had met and I were dancing together, and making out kind of a lot, and one of the bouncers kept sort of taking me aside and warning me that we were pushing it and to tone it down or he was going to have to take action. I really got the feeling he didn’t actually want to do anything but felt he had to. Meanwhile, my make-out companion was VERY, VERY DRUNK and therefore not really getting the concept of toning anything down. Nothing ultimately happened except that I very much felt others’ eyes on us and I ended up de facto in the position of trying to be responsible for this very wasted girl, but it was an odd situation all around. If a bouncer said anything like that to me in the US I’d be livid, but there it was more like we were getting away with something.

Kim Hoffman: Well. So. Okay. A few years ago, my ex-girlfriend was in town on leave from the army-we were in a major off period because LDRs can be way difficult and we quickly realized we were just so much better as friends. After a lot of weirdness from her end, I finally got a text one night she was in town that she was at her “uncle’s” house. I was sort of annoyed because it was after 10pm and I had that inner dialogue of like, “If I go, I have to change out of my pajamas, so, that puts me in a teenage Kim place all over again.”

Anyway, I decided to go. And as I drove toward a random drug store 45 minutes away to meet her so that she could take us in her car to his house, I started to get the most gut wrenching pit of my stomach feeling that something awful was going to happen. And like many of us, I didn’t stop, I just kept telling myself to chill the fuck out.

So, “uncle” is in quotes because I quickly learned he was no such thing, he was simply the father of her best friend from high school. His house was this weird ’70s shag pad (but with toys for nephews and nieces strewn about) and he kept trying to feed us more booze and pot, while he eyed my ex girlfriend up and down-she was in her fatigues. He mentions a dress she used to wear in high school, and how he’d love to “TAKE IT OFF WITH HIS TEETH.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and gave her a funny luck. When he went to the bathroom, I was like, “Um. Does he know you’re gay?” My ex was on the butcher, androgynous side like so many of my partners have been, where, I’ve totally 100% seen outward, homophobic hate spewed at them/us. But, this was different. He took us to a bar across the bridge from his house where he proceeded to get my ex girlfriend wasted. I stayed sober, because frankly, I was a complete ball of nerves-tunnel vision, sound going in and out. She kept trying to get me to dance with him. “Go! Dance with my Uncle! He’s fun. Go!” He would be, like, shimmying on the dance floor to “Santeria” and I couldn’t bring myself to join him, so finally he dragged her out there right as the song changed to a sexy slow jam and they started to….just get way closer. Too close.

Of course this drew the attention of the onlookers (a bunch of crisp, sunburnt middle aged Floridians with illustrations of fish on the back of their shirts) that were already eyeing us when we walked in. Dyke in her army uniform at a bar! Dyke in her army uniform at a bar! Everyone look! But the truth is, I had no idea what I was looking at anymore either. I couldn’t tell. Was she into him? No way. I mean. Yeah, he was running his hands through her hair and she was looking up at him smiling, but, this just COULDN’T BE. And in a flash, she darted through the crowd and pushed me toward the back door and as we flung out into the night, she fell into a patch of grass and wouldn’t let me get her up. When “Uncle” came out after us, he began to smile-as if he was pleased with this display. He was going to be her hero in shining armor and he lifted her up with little effort over his shoulders and carried her to the car. Two bouncers standing at the front of this bar were chuckling, “Look at that drunk army boy.” “Amateur.” The whole way back to “Uncle’s” house, he had Pink Floyd blaring and my ex was passed out cold in the passenger seat. My fists were clenched and I prepared for, I don’t know what. But when we pulled up to his house, he said, “I got this from here. You can go home.” I refused.

“I don’t know you. I’m not going anywhere.” He kept referring to my ex by her middle name. She changed her name to a more masculine sounding name when she came out, but he refused to acknowledge that and kept using her previous name. I was SO FUCKING PEEVED and when I saw his face change from smiley to scary, I went into survival mode. “Do you really think you can handle her? Do you REALLY think you can lift her up and take her over to your car and stop me?” He tried waking her up then and asked her, “Do you want to come inside and go to bed?” She mumbled yes. I then piped in, saying her name-not the one he kept using, “HEY, ___, I’m taking you home right now, OKAY?” She mumbled OK. But he didn’t give us a chance. He got out of the car and came over to her side and lifted her up and began walking inside. “You can come in too, if you want. I don’t care what you do.”

As soon as we got inside, he went into the other room and my ex grabbed me with as much sober strength I could ever see a plastered person muster and shoved us into the bathroom and locked the door. She looked me dead in the eye with her face glazed over, digging her hands into my shirt and said, “Get us out of here. Now.” I said okay and again prepared myself for I don’t know what. But we exited the bathroom and there he was, shirtless and chest hair out sitting on the couch with a big smirk on his face asking my ex girlfriend for a kiss and if she wanted to “go to the bed.” I told him we were leaving, as calmly and cooly as I possibly could. But I wanted to scream at him, and tell him to die. I had all these feelings, like this wasn’t his first go-around, that I was throwing a major wrench into his plans.

As we left, he winked at me and readjusted his crotch in the seat of the couch. I have no idea how I got her home that night. I have no idea how I was able to carry her from his couch to the car, or from the car into her house. Somehow all the adrenaline had me on a level I didn’t know existed in me. But you know what? I wasn’t going to let this man feel my fear. I wanted him to fear me. I wasn’t going to leave her there, not on my watch, motherfucker.

Have you been harassed for being lesbian, bi or queer?

Emily McGaughy: Due to my femme-ness, I can typically walk the streets unnoticed as a gay woman. I’ve been harassed way more for simply being a woman than for being queer. However, there have been a few instances-mostly when I’ve been with a girlfriend, which effectively outed me to the general public-in which I’ve been on the receiving end of anti-gay harassment.

After a night of cocktails in the Dallas gayborhood, my girlfriend at the time and I were walking back to the car. A creeper pulled up beside us and asked us to go back to his hotel with him. He swore he just wanted to watch; such a gentleman, right? Another time, my wife and I were leaving a restaurant and another patron walked out behind us uttering, “Faggots, faggots, faggots…” on repeat, under his breath. This gave me the perfect opportunity to use one of my favorite Schecter lines from The L Word, “We’re not fags, we’re dykes.”

Chelsea Steiner: My femme presentation usually keeps me under the radar for anti-queer sentiment, but I get plenty of negative attention as a woman, and a few times, as a Jew. Antisemitism, how retro! But one night, I was out with some friends in WeHo and a guy walked by and shouted “Faggots!” at us. This took place on the corner of Santa Monica and Robertson, aka Gay Central. I was honestly more worried about his safety than my own, as he seemed to be the only straight person in a five mile radius. All these stories make me want to get on a rocket ship and go colonize another planet. Friendly people and their pets are welcome.

Jenna Lykes Duggan: I, too, have had a lot of people shout or mutter “faggot” at me-whether I’m with my wife or alone. Which, like, I don’t get. At all. I often want to stop and ask them if they know what the word faggot means? ?»\_(Òâä)_/?»

One of the most upsetting things I can remember happening to me was back when my wife and I were just young pups in love (probably around 20 or so). I was in the emergency room because I was (and still am) an idiot who drinks too much and gets hurt, and she was there with me. I think she was either laying or sitting on the stretcher with me, her arm around my shoulders. I’m sure we were snuggled close, and we may have kissed a few times, but it was certainly not a crazy make out sesh by any means.

All of a sudden, a nurse came up to us and said, “I know you girls are young and in love, and that’s great, but there are children here.” I think I just stared at her, and she smiled and walked away. And I just remember being so sad, because I already was hurting and Steph was just trying to take care of me. Being queer was still so new to me, her words drudged up all my old Catholic guilt about being “wrong” or “bad,” but that nurse thought she was being nice.

And, on the flip side, here’s a real quick story that hopefully restores some faith in people for y’all: About a year ago, I was going to Home Depot in the middle of the day with some co-workers (don’t ask…). It happened to be (bow)Tie Tuesday at work, so I was looking pretty masculine/androgynous with my short hair, bowtie, and jorts. The Home Depot was in Virginia, so I was feeling more than a little self-conscious.

I had been wandering around by myself for a few minutes when an employee, a white, middle-aged man, walked up to me. I prepared myself for the worst, but all he did was smile at me and ask if I needed help in his southern drawl. I said no, thank you. And then, you guys, he told me he really liked my style! It was such a sweet little exchange, I’ll never forget it.

This got longer than I meant it to. In conclusion, some people are terrible and some people are great. The end.

Grace Chu: Yeah, I’ve mostly gotten racist comments. When you look at me, you don’t assume “gay,” but like Dara, I can’t hide my Asian-ness. The night my girlfriend and I had our first date and we got a little tipsy and made out in the street. A car of bro dudes drove by and whistled. Both of us flipped them the middle finger at exactly the same time; it was then when I knew we were destined for a second date.

Miranda Meyer: I’ve been lucky on this front; the worst I’ve really gotten, which wasn’t so bad, was being threatened with being asked to leave a nightclub. (Normally I would consider this very bad, but it happened in Syria, which is not exactly a place where it’s easy or common to be queer in any open way, so my baseline is different, if that makes sense.) This girl I had met and I were dancing together, and making out kind of a lot, and one of the bouncers kept sort of taking me aside and warning me that we were pushing it and to tone it down or he was going to have to take action. I really got the feeling he didn’t actually want to do anything but felt he had to. Meanwhile, my make-out companion was VERY, VERY DRUNK and therefore not really getting the concept of toning anything down. Nothing ultimately happened except that I very much felt others’ eyes on us and I ended up de facto in the position of trying to be responsible for this very wasted girl, but it was an odd situation all around. If a bouncer said anything like that to me in the US I’d be livid, but there it was more like we were getting away with something.

Kim Hoffman: Well. So. Okay. A few years ago, my ex-girlfriend was in town on leave from the army-we were in a major off period because LDRs can be way difficult and we quickly realized we were just so much better as friends. After a lot of weirdness from her end, I finally got a text one night she was in town that she was at her “uncle’s” house. I was sort of annoyed because it was after 10pm and I had that inner dialogue of like, “If I go, I have to change out of my pajamas, so, that puts me in a teenage Kim place all over again.”

Anyway, I decided to go. And as I drove toward a random drug store 45 minutes away to meet her so that she could take us in her car to his house, I started to get the most gut wrenching pit of my stomach feeling that something awful was going to happen. And like many of us, I didn’t stop, I just kept telling myself to chill the fuck out.

So, “uncle” is in quotes because I quickly learned he was no such thing, he was simply the father of her best friend from high school. His house was this weird ’70s shag pad (but with toys for nephews and nieces strewn about) and he kept trying to feed us more booze and pot, while he eyed my ex girlfriend up and down-she was in her fatigues. He mentions a dress she used to wear in high school, and how he’d love to “TAKE IT OFF WITH HIS TEETH.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and gave her a funny luck. When he went to the bathroom, I was like, “Um. Does he know you’re gay?” My ex was on the butcher, androgynous side like so many of my partners have been, where, I’ve totally 100% seen outward, homophobic hate spewed at them/us. But, this was different. He took us to a bar across the bridge from his house where he proceeded to get my ex girlfriend wasted. I stayed sober, because frankly, I was a complete ball of nerves-tunnel vision, sound going in and out. She kept trying to get me to dance with him. “Go! Dance with my Uncle! He’s fun. Go!” He would be, like, shimmying on the dance floor to “Santeria” and I couldn’t bring myself to join him, so finally he dragged her out there right as the song changed to a sexy slow jam and they started to….just get way closer. Too close.

Of course this drew the attention of the onlookers (a bunch of crisp, sunburnt middle aged Floridians with illustrations of fish on the back of their shirts) that were already eyeing us when we walked in. Dyke in her army uniform at a bar! Dyke in her army uniform at a bar! Everyone look! But the truth is, I had no idea what I was looking at anymore either. I couldn’t tell. Was she into him? No way. I mean. Yeah, he was running his hands through her hair and she was looking up at him smiling, but, this just COULDN’T BE. And in a flash, she darted through the crowd and pushed me toward the back door and as we flung out into the night, she fell into a patch of grass and wouldn’t let me get her up. When “Uncle” came out after us, he began to smile-as if he was pleased with this display. He was going to be her hero in shining armor and he lifted her up with little effort over his shoulders and carried her to the car. Two bouncers standing at the front of this bar were chuckling, “Look at that drunk army boy.” “Amateur.” The whole way back to “Uncle’s” house, he had Pink Floyd blaring and my ex was passed out cold in the passenger seat. My fists were clenched and I prepared for, I don’t know what. But when we pulled up to his house, he said, “I got this from here. You can go home.” I refused.

“I don’t know you. I’m not going anywhere.” He kept referring to my ex by her middle name. She changed her name to a more masculine sounding name when she came out, but he refused to acknowledge that and kept using her previous name. I was SO FUCKING PEEVED and when I saw his face change from smiley to scary, I went into survival mode. “Do you really think you can handle her? Do you REALLY think you can lift her up and take her over to your car and stop me?” He tried waking her up then and asked her, “Do you want to come inside and go to bed?” She mumbled yes. I then piped in, saying her name-not the one he kept using, “HEY, ___, I’m taking you home right now, OKAY?” She mumbled OK. But he didn’t give us a chance. He got out of the car and came over to her side and lifted her up and began walking inside. “You can come in too, if you want. I don’t care what you do.”

As soon as we got inside, he went into the other room and my ex grabbed me with as much sober strength I could ever see a plastered person muster and shoved us into the bathroom and locked the door. She looked me dead in the eye with her face glazed over, digging her hands into my shirt and said, “Get us out of here. Now.” I said okay and again prepared myself for I don’t know what. But we exited the bathroom and there he was, shirtless and chest hair out sitting on the couch with a big smirk on his face asking my ex girlfriend for a kiss and if she wanted to “go to the bed.” I told him we were leaving, as calmly and cooly as I possibly could. But I wanted to scream at him, and tell him to die. I had all these feelings, like this wasn’t his first go-around, that I was throwing a major wrench into his plans.

As we left, he winked at me and readjusted his crotch in the seat of the couch. I have no idea how I got her home that night. I have no idea how I was able to carry her from his couch to the car, or from the car into her house. Somehow all the adrenaline had me on a level I didn’t know existed in me. But you know what? I wasn’t going to let this man feel my fear. I wanted him to fear me. I wasn’t going to leave her there, not on my watch, motherfucker.

Have you been harassed for being lesbian, bi or queer?

Ali Davis: The first time it happened to me, it was because a dude just couldn’t stand it that I didn’t find him delightful. I was 22 or 23, tending bar at the Second City in Chicago. Steve joined the staff and kept telling us he was really a commodities trader, apparently not realizing that his brag actually told us that he was such a bad commodities trader that he needed to tend bar on the side.

Thing is, he was also a terrible bartender. And he thought he was irresistibly handsome, so he would spend most of his shift trying to flirt with female customers and rolling up huge wads of unused paper towels and ostentatiously basketball-throwing them into the trash because he thought that was adorable.

It was not adorable, especially when it left me handling 300-plus customers essentially by myself. Steve, though dim, could tell that not only did I not find him dreamy, I loathed working with him for some strange reason. He tried to solve that by playfully grabbing my ass in front of a full bar one night, and I gave him an earful. I didn’t rat him out to management (which I totally should have done), but I did tell a couple of our fellow bartenders, and one of the larger ones may or may not have threatened to murder him.

So Steve decided I was a lesbian, because who else could resist? The funny thing was that I had not yet made my majestic march up the Kinsey scale-I was about 85% actively attracted to men and 15% Strange New Feelings that I hadn’t quite dealt with yet. In my head, I was just a straight (or mostly straight, except for that one woman at my other part-time job…) woman who could not stand him for the very good reason that he was a dickbag.

One night as I was walking to my bus stop after work, a car full of dudes (Steve had mentioned going out with his buddies that night) screeched past me and a guy yelled “Goodnight, lesbo!” out the window. Which didn’t bother me until I heard the car again and realized that they had rounded the block and were coming back at me again. It was late, I was alone, and I thought I was in real danger. Instead they just threw some trash out the window at me.

I can’t prove it was Steve, but I did tell the whole crew about the mysterious car (Who could have been inside?) from the night before, and I know my awesome manager’s ears went up. Steve was a terrible enough bartender that there were plenty of reasons to let him go when they did shortly afterward, but I’m guessing that added a little weight to the pile.

Anyway, if you’re a commodities trader in Chicago and you have to work with a jackass named Steve who brags about how alllll the ladies loved him when he was a bartender: No, they didn’t, and yes, our whole staff hated him as much as you do.

But that was just an asshole being an asshole in one of the many ways he was capable of doing so. The only incident that really stung was on election night in 2008. I was volunteering for the No on 8 campaign, standing whatever designated feet from polling places and handing out cards. As the evening went on, the main office knew from exit polls that we were losing, so they started moving teams from easy-pickings polling places to more politically mixed neighborhoods where we were far less welcome.

Our last spot as election night was winding down was in a neighborhood that definitely had some liberal hipster pioneers in it, but was mostly bedrock conservatives. One woman pulled up in her car and told me I was not allowed to stand so close to a school. (Though she did apologize after the election officials told her she was wrong.) It was dark, my group had split up for better coverage, and three teenage boys, maybe 15 or so, came my way. The leader of the group stopped and asked, “Hey. Who’d you vote for?” I said Obama, and suddenly these three kids and I were best buds. The leader fist-bumped me, and it was this magical little This Is What America Should Be moment: A young Latino kid who had grown up in a West-coast city fist-bumping a white woman who had grown up in the East-coast suburbs and both of us feeling hopeful about what the future might hold.

And then they saw the cards in my hand.The leader got in my face and yelled “That’s SICK!” and then the three of them ran away down the street screaming the standard insults. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to explain that I’m actually bi, and they needed a slightly different set. I know that 15-year-old boy is the stage in life where gay stuff is the very scariest, but for some reason, it really hurt. The happy ending is that a sweet (straight) hipster dude came rushing out of his election night party to ask if I was OK, then offered me a slice of vegan pizza and offered to stand with me if I didn’t feel safe. We lost on Prop 8, but the Presidential candidate who didn’t make fearing gay people a part of his campaign won. And the furious reaction to Prop 8 sparked the wave of gay marriage acceptance that’s happening now. So, yeah, sometimes the path sucks, the arc of the universe does bend towards justice.

Anna Pulley: Most of the harassment I’ve faced has been of the fairly benign, bro-ish variety-dudes who would look at me and my girlfriend and wink dramatically and applaud us like monkeys. One even tried to “seduce” us up with the line, “I used to be a lesbian!”

Others have yelled things from cars like “fucking dykes!” or said they would pray for me, and most recently my gf and I were bashed at a cupcake truck (in the Gay/Bay Area!) by a man who asked us to stop being affectionate because it was “confusing his son.” I was like, “What’s confusing? Two people who love each other? He doesn’t understand that?” We got into it and I felt very victorious for standing up to him (I hate confrontation), but it really ruined my damn cupcake.

Dana Piccoli: Just the other day, a man called me and my wife “fucking dykes” as we held hands on a crowded street in Astoria, Queens. He then shoved his middle finger in our faces, but thankfully we were able to walk away from the situation before it escalated. I was just taken aback by how angry he was and how much he hated us. Literally used the word hate. It had been so long since anyone had said anything to be, that I’d forgotten how scary and unsettling it is. It made me think back to when I was a freshwoman in college and after returning from a weekend at home, my dorm room door was vandalized to say “Dana the Dike”. Spelling mistake or not, my dad saw it and it was a very embarrassing situation for me. When the cops came, they told me they couldn’t really do anything about it since it wasn’t a hate crime in Michigan. The officer felt bad, I felt bad, my dad felt bad. I wrote a letter to whoever did it, and posted it next to my door. What really blew me away though, was when a group of girls who lived on my floor, signed it in support. Good can come from bad sometimes.

Sarah Terez Rosenblum: Interestingly, I’ve only ever been gay-bashed when I was alone or doing nothing remotely gay. “Whatever,” you might say, you can get gay bashed alone. But, I’ve never particularly read as queer. So when men have driven past and yelled “Dyke!” from their trucks, I’ve chalked it up to a need to insult and diminish rather than a direct response to my queerness. We’ve made strides, sure, but terms associated with homosexuality still function as insults. Oh, and I also got called lesbo and spit on once while I was riding the El. Apparently reading US magazine is a super dykey activity.

Valerie Anne: I’ve been extremely lucky, only having to deal with annoying comments from douchebros (including the time the mildly terrifying response to my “No thank you, I’m a lesbian” was “That’s okay, I like a challenge”) or unintentionally ignorant comments from friends (“you wouldn’t understand, you’re a lesbian” which is only true if you’re talking about actual penii…I can still empathize with a story involving an attractive man, I’m clever like that). But one of the reasons I didn’t come out until after college was because I went to Catholic school my whole life and it was basically encouraged to be mean or at least condescending to anyone who even looked in the general direction of something LGBT related. I had a friend who was harassed so badly that he had to transfer schools partway through sophomore year because he was beginning to fear for his life. Of course, there’s the double standard; my senior year, there was a rumor I was dating a female friend of mine (I wasn’t, but in retrospect my feelings were probably a bit more than platonic) and with the exception of teasing, the worst we got was a threesome proposition.

In college a few of my attempts to confide in friends about questioning my sexuality were usually met with eye rolls and declarations that it was just a phase. I once had a coworker who would, regularly, bring up my lesbianism without preamble and say things like, “How do you KNOW? Maybe you just need a good man. Maybe you just need to have good sex with a good man. You can’t KNOW until you’ve had sex with a man.” And I’d be like, “You haven’t had sex with a man, but you know you’re not gay.” To which I’d receive a panicked, “ACK ARGH THAT’S TOTALLY DIFFERENT.” It happened more often than I would have liked, especially since I was a receptionist at the time so I couldn’t even get up from my desk to escape the conversation. But while the day-to-day frustrations are annoying, and can make me weary, I tend to “pass” as straight, and as much as the heteronormativity of that fact drives me bananas, I know it has probably kept some bigoted comments at bay.

Emily McGaughy: Due to my femme-ness, I can typically walk the streets unnoticed as a gay woman. I’ve been harassed way more for simply being a woman than for being queer. However, there have been a few instances-mostly when I’ve been with a girlfriend, which effectively outed me to the general public-in which I’ve been on the receiving end of anti-gay harassment.

After a night of cocktails in the Dallas gayborhood, my girlfriend at the time and I were walking back to the car. A creeper pulled up beside us and asked us to go back to his hotel with him. He swore he just wanted to watch; such a gentleman, right? Another time, my wife and I were leaving a restaurant and another patron walked out behind us uttering, “Faggots, faggots, faggots…” on repeat, under his breath. This gave me the perfect opportunity to use one of my favorite Schecter lines from The L Word, “We’re not fags, we’re dykes.”

Chelsea Steiner: My femme presentation usually keeps me under the radar for anti-queer sentiment, but I get plenty of negative attention as a woman, and a few times, as a Jew. Antisemitism, how retro! But one night, I was out with some friends in WeHo and a guy walked by and shouted “Faggots!” at us. This took place on the corner of Santa Monica and Robertson, aka Gay Central. I was honestly more worried about his safety than my own, as he seemed to be the only straight person in a five mile radius. All these stories make me want to get on a rocket ship and go colonize another planet. Friendly people and their pets are welcome.

Jenna Lykes Duggan: I, too, have had a lot of people shout or mutter “faggot” at me-whether I’m with my wife or alone. Which, like, I don’t get. At all. I often want to stop and ask them if they know what the word faggot means? ?»\_(Òâä)_/?»

One of the most upsetting things I can remember happening to me was back when my wife and I were just young pups in love (probably around 20 or so). I was in the emergency room because I was (and still am) an idiot who drinks too much and gets hurt, and she was there with me. I think she was either laying or sitting on the stretcher with me, her arm around my shoulders. I’m sure we were snuggled close, and we may have kissed a few times, but it was certainly not a crazy make out sesh by any means.

All of a sudden, a nurse came up to us and said, “I know you girls are young and in love, and that’s great, but there are children here.” I think I just stared at her, and she smiled and walked away. And I just remember being so sad, because I already was hurting and Steph was just trying to take care of me. Being queer was still so new to me, her words drudged up all my old Catholic guilt about being “wrong” or “bad,” but that nurse thought she was being nice.

And, on the flip side, here’s a real quick story that hopefully restores some faith in people for y’all: About a year ago, I was going to Home Depot in the middle of the day with some co-workers (don’t ask…). It happened to be (bow)Tie Tuesday at work, so I was looking pretty masculine/androgynous with my short hair, bowtie, and jorts. The Home Depot was in Virginia, so I was feeling more than a little self-conscious.

I had been wandering around by myself for a few minutes when an employee, a white, middle-aged man, walked up to me. I prepared myself for the worst, but all he did was smile at me and ask if I needed help in his southern drawl. I said no, thank you. And then, you guys, he told me he really liked my style! It was such a sweet little exchange, I’ll never forget it.

This got longer than I meant it to. In conclusion, some people are terrible and some people are great. The end.

Grace Chu: Yeah, I’ve mostly gotten racist comments. When you look at me, you don’t assume “gay,” but like Dara, I can’t hide my Asian-ness. The night my girlfriend and I had our first date and we got a little tipsy and made out in the street. A car of bro dudes drove by and whistled. Both of us flipped them the middle finger at exactly the same time; it was then when I knew we were destined for a second date.

Miranda Meyer: I’ve been lucky on this front; the worst I’ve really gotten, which wasn’t so bad, was being threatened with being asked to leave a nightclub. (Normally I would consider this very bad, but it happened in Syria, which is not exactly a place where it’s easy or common to be queer in any open way, so my baseline is different, if that makes sense.) This girl I had met and I were dancing together, and making out kind of a lot, and one of the bouncers kept sort of taking me aside and warning me that we were pushing it and to tone it down or he was going to have to take action. I really got the feeling he didn’t actually want to do anything but felt he had to. Meanwhile, my make-out companion was VERY, VERY DRUNK and therefore not really getting the concept of toning anything down. Nothing ultimately happened except that I very much felt others’ eyes on us and I ended up de facto in the position of trying to be responsible for this very wasted girl, but it was an odd situation all around. If a bouncer said anything like that to me in the US I’d be livid, but there it was more like we were getting away with something.

Kim Hoffman: Well. So. Okay. A few years ago, my ex-girlfriend was in town on leave from the army-we were in a major off period because LDRs can be way difficult and we quickly realized we were just so much better as friends. After a lot of weirdness from her end, I finally got a text one night she was in town that she was at her “uncle’s” house. I was sort of annoyed because it was after 10pm and I had that inner dialogue of like, “If I go, I have to change out of my pajamas, so, that puts me in a teenage Kim place all over again.”

Anyway, I decided to go. And as I drove toward a random drug store 45 minutes away to meet her so that she could take us in her car to his house, I started to get the most gut wrenching pit of my stomach feeling that something awful was going to happen. And like many of us, I didn’t stop, I just kept telling myself to chill the fuck out.

So, “uncle” is in quotes because I quickly learned he was no such thing, he was simply the father of her best friend from high school. His house was this weird ’70s shag pad (but with toys for nephews and nieces strewn about) and he kept trying to feed us more booze and pot, while he eyed my ex girlfriend up and down-she was in her fatigues. He mentions a dress she used to wear in high school, and how he’d love to “TAKE IT OFF WITH HIS TEETH.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and gave her a funny luck. When he went to the bathroom, I was like, “Um. Does he know you’re gay?” My ex was on the butcher, androgynous side like so many of my partners have been, where, I’ve totally 100% seen outward, homophobic hate spewed at them/us. But, this was different. He took us to a bar across the bridge from his house where he proceeded to get my ex girlfriend wasted. I stayed sober, because frankly, I was a complete ball of nerves-tunnel vision, sound going in and out. She kept trying to get me to dance with him. “Go! Dance with my Uncle! He’s fun. Go!” He would be, like, shimmying on the dance floor to “Santeria” and I couldn’t bring myself to join him, so finally he dragged her out there right as the song changed to a sexy slow jam and they started to….just get way closer. Too close.

Of course this drew the attention of the onlookers (a bunch of crisp, sunburnt middle aged Floridians with illustrations of fish on the back of their shirts) that were already eyeing us when we walked in. Dyke in her army uniform at a bar! Dyke in her army uniform at a bar! Everyone look! But the truth is, I had no idea what I was looking at anymore either. I couldn’t tell. Was she into him? No way. I mean. Yeah, he was running his hands through her hair and she was looking up at him smiling, but, this just COULDN’T BE. And in a flash, she darted through the crowd and pushed me toward the back door and as we flung out into the night, she fell into a patch of grass and wouldn’t let me get her up. When “Uncle” came out after us, he began to smile-as if he was pleased with this display. He was going to be her hero in shining armor and he lifted her up with little effort over his shoulders and carried her to the car. Two bouncers standing at the front of this bar were chuckling, “Look at that drunk army boy.” “Amateur.” The whole way back to “Uncle’s” house, he had Pink Floyd blaring and my ex was passed out cold in the passenger seat. My fists were clenched and I prepared for, I don’t know what. But when we pulled up to his house, he said, “I got this from here. You can go home.” I refused.

“I don’t know you. I’m not going anywhere.” He kept referring to my ex by her middle name. She changed her name to a more masculine sounding name when she came out, but he refused to acknowledge that and kept using her previous name. I was SO FUCKING PEEVED and when I saw his face change from smiley to scary, I went into survival mode. “Do you really think you can handle her? Do you REALLY think you can lift her up and take her over to your car and stop me?” He tried waking her up then and asked her, “Do you want to come inside and go to bed?” She mumbled yes. I then piped in, saying her name-not the one he kept using, “HEY, ___, I’m taking you home right now, OKAY?” She mumbled OK. But he didn’t give us a chance. He got out of the car and came over to her side and lifted her up and began walking inside. “You can come in too, if you want. I don’t care what you do.”

As soon as we got inside, he went into the other room and my ex grabbed me with as much sober strength I could ever see a plastered person muster and shoved us into the bathroom and locked the door. She looked me dead in the eye with her face glazed over, digging her hands into my shirt and said, “Get us out of here. Now.” I said okay and again prepared myself for I don’t know what. But we exited the bathroom and there he was, shirtless and chest hair out sitting on the couch with a big smirk on his face asking my ex girlfriend for a kiss and if she wanted to “go to the bed.” I told him we were leaving, as calmly and cooly as I possibly could. But I wanted to scream at him, and tell him to die. I had all these feelings, like this wasn’t his first go-around, that I was throwing a major wrench into his plans.

As we left, he winked at me and readjusted his crotch in the seat of the couch. I have no idea how I got her home that night. I have no idea how I was able to carry her from his couch to the car, or from the car into her house. Somehow all the adrenaline had me on a level I didn’t know existed in me. But you know what? I wasn’t going to let this man feel my fear. I wanted him to fear me. I wasn’t going to leave her there, not on my watch, motherfucker.

Have you been harassed for being lesbian, bi or queer?

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