Terrifyingly Fabulous, or How I got kicked out of Atlanta Gay Pride

[justben]

I had a lot of fun at the Atlanta Pride Festival today. It was deeply satisfying to see so many wonderful people in an environment where where they can express their love for their chosen partners without society frowning on them simply because their chosen partners happen to be the same gender or sex as they are. It was fun to see people enjoying

Comments

the threat - examples:

[reikimaster]

In the 90's in Candler park/Little Five Points area, Skin Heads were a huge threat to....well, to everybody but esp to gays and lesbians. Walking down the street holding hands with a girlfriend was a brave and dangerous act. We were often spit on, threatened and had to run to escape violence.

Young men black or white - even those who were not skin heads - were very scary and often violent towards us.

Cant remember the year that the lesbian bar, The Otherside, was bombed. late 90's I think.

Last year at a demonstration about gay marriage, a friend of mine was brutally assaulted by christian men. She has some PTSD from it.

so those are only a few examples but the threat against gays and lesbians is still real and violent and very scary. Until you live through it, you have no way of knowing how awful it is. and even tho it may seem kind of silly, a guy in a long black coat in summer may appear at best delusional, at worst, a violent threat. It's not personal and in some ways not really even about you.

(My first thought when reading your post, was of Columbine)

Re: the threat - examples:

[justben]

Thanks for your reply! I didn’t know about the stuff ten years ago, and I certainly didn’t realize it was still an issue sometimes. I’m so sorry to hear about your friend!