THEGAYUK APRIL/MAY ISSUE 3
2014
MARRIAGE SPECIAL
Saturday 29 th March
2014 will forever be a
wonderful day in the
history of our country;
the day same-sex
couples were finally
able to marry each
other. It’s a wonderful
progression in the
struggle for equal rights
and I am proud to be
from a country that now
has
such
laws.
However, while it’s
absolutely fabulous, we
need to keep in mind
that we are not done
yet.
A personal
friend of mine
has received
transphobic
abuse for a
number of years
and reported it
to the Police on
many occasions,
even telling
them some
names of people
who were being
abusive.
Nothing was
done about the
abuse and my
friend continued
to live in fear
I hear from a lot of people
about their experiences of
discrimination. Recently a
gay couple were asked to
leave the venue for kissing
each other; something
which is actually illegal. It
has been brought to the
attention of the Police but I
am not aware that anything
has been done about it.
It’s not just an issue with
one venue though. When
hosting the first
Warwickshire Pride festival
in the summer of 2013 there
was an incident of
homophobia when a man
called some of the stall
holders “fucking queers”.
Not too bad, perhaps. But
what is bad is that the
homophobe then went
online to the stall holder’s
Facebook page and began to
message homophobic abuse
to people and threaten
them. The criminal offence
was again reported to the
Police but nothing could be
done because it did not
come directly from the
person who was the victim
of the abuse.
Although pretty much
having complete legal
equality, there remains a
huge amount of social
inequality in this country.
We often hear about the
situation for LGBT people
around the world in places
such as Russia, Uganda and
even America (supposedly a
free land), but what we
don’t hear about enough is
what it’s like for LGBT
people living in this
country. There seems to be
an assumption that
everything is going to be ok
A personal friend of mine
now because we have
has received transphobic
marriage equality, but let’s
abuse for a number of years
remind ourselves that
and reported it to the Police
homophobia, transphobia me being allowed back into
and discrimination are still the bar but it is something I on many occasions, even
telling them some names of
chose not to do on principle.
rife.
people who were being
I have some real life examples The same venue is now under abusive. Nothing was done
to refer to here. I have different ownership and has about the abuse and my
personally been barred from a c h a n g e d i t s n a m e , b u t friend continued to live in
pub in my local town for discrimination still exists. I fear.
being gay. The explanation do a lot of work around LGBT
given to me by the manager community engagement with It’s situations like this that
was that I am a “fucking my local Council and am seen give LGBT people such little
d i s g u s t i n g q u e e r ” . I locally as the authority on f a i t h i n t h e a u t h o r i t i e s
challenged the barring and anything gay (something I actually doing something
kicked up a fuss. It resulted in have never claimed to be), so about Hate Crime.
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