Woman & mother mistaken for lesbians, assaulted

[left-of-center2012]

Woman & mother assaulted, mistaken for lesbian couple
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A woman said she was just going out for a late-night dinner with her mother, when they were apparently mistaken for a couple and brutally assaulted in an anti-gay attack.

> We keep hearing the word ‘lesbian’ said over and over again,” Tiffany Santiago said.
> attacked ... by a group at a nearby table who started yelling anti-gay slurs and throwing things
> fighting escalated from shouting into shoving, and then an all-out brawl. “He threw me across the restaurant,” Santiago said. “I don’t even know how far I went, but I went through tables, chairs, glasses.”
> her attackers were drunk, and said the restaurant owner .... also appeared drunk

When asked for comment, the owner would not speak to CBS2.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/09/17/hate-crime-midtown-attack/

[TygrBright]

1. Something similar (but not violent) happened to me & my mother once.

We were taking a walk in a "nice" neighborhood in St. Paul, along a pretty boulevard, discussing all that deep mother-daughter shit from what kind of pizza is best to life after death, and I think we might have been holding hands.

Well, we DO love each other very much.

We noticed this car cruising past, went around the block, came by again.

eh, kids... yanno...

Then it made a third pass, windows open this time, with yobbo heads hanging out, hollering childish homophobic slurs.

Our surprise/laughter response might have thrown them off, or they were just in a hurry to go find someone else to harass, but they drove off and didn't return.

But after we stopped laughing, we didn't feel so great, in part because, as my Mom put it, "They missed with us... but they're probably still out there trying to hurt others." And then she cried a little, and told me some of the things my older sister, who came out as a lesbian when she was in her late teens, had suffered. I hadn't really known, at the time.

It never occurred to us then, that it might have escalated to outright physical assault. That was back before the first time I had to render first aid and/or emergency room transport to friends who'd been "fag-bashed."

Hate and fear are so deadly. I'm trying hard to eliminate them from my own consciousness, but there is such a powerful tide of them in our society, to keep us divided and unconnected and powerless...

sadly,
Bright

[left-of-center2012]

3. I'm sory that happened to you.

Sadly, I suspect it happens too often to many gay and non gay people.

[TygrBright]

4. Thank you. In a way, though, I value the experience.

It's harder to understand and fight hate, if you haven't experienced it. Not impossible, but harder.

It's a fight that matters to me.

reflectively,
Bright

[marble falls]

2. I'm shocked.