This kind of fear is not exclusive to gay women, it’s important to add. LGBT+ hate crimes are on the rise in this country while homophobic laws have been introduced in others, and increasing criticism of gender non-conformity has made anyone who doesn’t quite fit in with traditional gender norms a potential target. While you may be able to switch on the telly and see two men dancing together in the Strictly final, or drag queens advertising us everything from broadband to quarter pounders, it’s still not safe to be visibly gay. And at the moment I feel more scared than in the mood for celebrating.Īs much as I don’t want to let those men and people like them “win”, I probably will think twice before I get another train home late at night, or before I next hold my wife’s hand in public. It’s still undeniable that being visibly a lesbian can put me in danger. And I can’t help thinking that even if CCTV can identify the men who did this to us, there will probably be other incidents like this in my life, and I will probably feel just as helpless. When things escalated and they started throwing things at us, I went and told on them to the train manager like a pathetic schoolchild, rather than standing up for myself as I felt I should have been able to as a fully grown adult. Rather than turning around and shouting back, I instead avoided eye contact and stayed silent, knowing that we were outnumbered and unable to defend ourselves if they decided to physically attack us. Men on the train were hurling abuse at us, and I didn’t feel as if there was much I could do about it. And the next email in my inbox was from the British Transport Police, asking me to digitally sign the statement I provided after my wife and I were victims of a homophobic hate crime on a recent train journey. I hadn’t even realised it was this week, until I was informed via an email from Stonewall. But this time around I’ve found it trickier to stomach. I’ve always viewed it as a positive thing: an opportunity to be proud of who we are and how far we’ve come, and to keep fighting to be seen equally. When using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo check the safe search settings where you can exclude adult content sites from your search results Īsk your internet service provider if they offer additional filters īe responsible, know what your children are doing online.Lesbian Visibility Day, or week, as it’s now become, has been around since 2008, the entirety of my life as an out lesbian. Use family filters of your operating systems and/or browsers
Other steps you can take to protect your children are: More information about the RTA Label and compatible services can be found here. Parental tools that are compatible with the RTA label will block access to this site. We use the "Restricted To Adults" (RTA) website label to better enable parental filtering.
Protect your children from adult content and block access to this site by using parental controls. PARENTS, PLEASE BE ADVISED: If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to keep any age-restricted content from being displayed to your children or wards. Furthermore, you represent and warrant that you will not allow any minor access to this site or services. This website should only be accessed if you are at least 18 years old or of legal age to view such material in your local jurisdiction, whichever is greater. You are about to enter a website that contains explicit material (pornography).