Q:alliance

Some of our HQMK youth group were asked to write down their thoughts and experiences around homophobia and transphobia in Milton Keynes to give to SaferMK. Below is a sample of what was written…

• People at my sixth form are so opinionated about gays, they make me feel like an outsider

• Was once told…. By a guy who threatened me…. Apparently it’s different for a boy to hit a lesbian than it is for a boy to hit a straight girl

• Family Values – My stepdad finds its impossible to have a gay friend, also believes my sexuality is a phase. My mother accepts but he thinks it’s unnatural. Because of this I felt obligated to hide my sexuality and go out with boys when I was younger.

• When walking through the city holding my ex’s hand I was jeered at and followed by a group of younger lads. They shouted names and were actually really intimidating despite being a lot younger.

• Lesbians and gays do get picked on. Homophobes exist (I used to be one I should know).

• I get really fed up and angry when people take the mick out of me for being gay and wearing makeup.

• When I was attacked at school the school took it seriously, but the police would only take it as an offence if there was a physical reason (not homophobia) to prosecute. I was 15 at the time. I suffered a broken rib and a fractured skull. Once I took it to court I received £150 compensation and the attacked received 6 months supervision order and a record of GBH.

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• We’re all human, we all deserve our rights
  We all want to be happy, feel safe, and live in harmony
  Homophobia does happen and it needs to stop
  No life should be let down for who they love
  Everyone needs to live together

• Like paper you can rip me apart
  With words from a cruel heart
  Now my patience has worn thin
  So noose be my friend?
  Don’t deny my escape
  (homophobia, it exists)

• My sister hasn’t spoken to me for 2 years because I am gay. All I wanted was to love you.

• Someone said it was disgusting to like someone of the same gender.

• Being called greedy all the time by people I don’t know. Called a slag for 4 years in school. I was 15 when I decided I was bisexual but didn’t come out until I was 16 because I was scared of being bullied or teased about it. Being judged by my sexuality. I tried to kill myself when I was 15 because of the bullying.

• When I was in year 8 my best friend started to bully me. I left the school due to that and I wasn’t in the catchment area. I started speaking to her again 4 years later. I told her I was gay and she was fine with it. However, a few days later she kept ringing me and shouting homophobic abuse down the phone. I told her to grow up and to never talk to me again and I haven’t heard anything since, almost a year later.

• Bein called a tramp for wearin ripped jeans and dressing different, which is what homosexuals are, it’s a different community that discriminated for being different.

• There was a group of ‘chavs’ in my street. I wouldn’t leave or enter the garden without them shouting abuse.

• Cyber bullying and threat phone calls – My experience is having abuse and prank phone calls and threats hurled at me. Trying to turn people against me by making up rumours. Intimidating glances.

• “I was fifteen years old, I was with my old best friend walking down a redway in Bradwell Common. Approximately twenty large females approached me. They started to shout at me for no apparent reason, I then said ‘sorry for anything I had done’ but they didn’t listen and told me that they were going to hit me and beat me up. I was very frightened and attempted to walk away but they wouldn’t let me. Eventually they told me to go away and I walked off with my best friend to her house. As soon as I entered the house I burst into tears as I didn’t understand why such a thing would happen. I wasn’t able to walk home after so I got a lift back and stayed away from Bradwell Common ever since. I sometimes have to walk through the estate but I make sure I am with people at all times to prevent the same from happening again.”