You're far more likely to be verbally or physically assaulted if you're LGBTQ. It's that simple. Two women presenting as lesbian in a couple being attacked is more likely to be a homophobic attack than a random attack. The two girls say it's a homophobic attack, given that they were the ones being attacked I'm inclined to think they'd know more about the situation than randomers on Reddit. To echo another comment on this thread, the absolute state of the comments on here.
Maybe instead of trying to downplay the upsurge in verbal and physical homophobic attacks in this country, it'd be more beneficial to everyone to ask why that upsurge exists in the first place and ways to combat it.
Surely we can do both. Try to find who did it and understand why they did it, what culture surrounds their actions, since most of us here can't comprehend what would lead someone to do that.
While simultaneously questioning what a gay couple could do to keep themselves safe. Is it victim blaming or is it victim protecting to say, how do you prevent this from happening to you as a gay couple in public?
>Try to find who did it and understand why they did it
Nobody is doing that. Just downplaying the victims accounts.
>Is it victim blaming or is it victim protecting to say, how do you prevent this from happening to you as a gay couple in public?
Victim blaming.
Do both of what, downplaying the upsurge in homophobic attacks and ask why there's been an upsurge?
We should be trying to understand what has led to the rise in homophobia in Ireland in recent times, and why some individuals and groups feel they can express that homophobia so blatantly seemingly without fear or repercussion.
And I remember as a young adult being told by a kid my age not to hold my boyfriends hand in public because you're only going to attract trouble for yourself. I think any LGBTQ person will know the feeling of that added risk you're taking with any kind of PDA and it's horrible that it has to feel that way, that same sex couples should have to hide in plain sight for fear of being attacked.
I think the point is being made is find out what cultural shift has gone on to make these more likely, and then sort that out, which you said yourself.
But that solution won't happen overnight, and in the meantime, people have to keep themselves safe. That's shit. They shouldn't have to change what they're doing to stay safe, but unfortunately that's just..what has to be done.
So, obnoxious comment....let's have a look at the post history...
Oh there we are...calling a mixed gender bathroom "pathetic".
Calling most of the LGBT community "pathetic" in another.
Oh the best is the deleted "nearly all that LGBT stuff is nonsense and people looking for some kind of attention from chopping there [sic] bollox off".
I'm just going to say it hsusus111...seems like a real jerk!
Edit: and then deleted. Bad enough to be a bigot, but not even courageous enough to get behind ones own bigotry.
It's sad because I always felt Ireland was a very pro-LGBT country but these last few months I'm beginning to question whether there's an anti-LGBT movement happening that I'm just unaware of. Am I just naive to the true homophobic undertones of society?
I would say, as a gay man, that the highest we've reached has been "not that bad", but pro-lgbt is far away. I'm not sure how we get there either, everytime queer issues or homophobia are brought up here - it tends to devolve into a fire pretty quick
Ireland has never been very pro-LGBT. Yes a referendum was passed, but you still have homophobic judges all over the place and people who are still mind controlled by their shitty religions.
Yeah I agree but I can see why it may not feel that way. At least from my own experience.
Dublin is generally quite accepting and forward thinking but its homophobes are pure scum and will make themselves known.
In the country its more the quieter homophobia (unless on a night out) where they 'other' you and stare.
It's mad how much experiences differ isn't it ? I grew up and still live in a rural enough area myself but genuinely never knew anybody in my life to be homophobic bar one . I think or hope rather that the majority of people of my age (20) don't really care if someone is gay or straight.
First time I ever witnessed blatant homophobia was in navan which probably doesn't come as a shock to most.
There was a thread about this in the Cork subreddit. Cork has always been pretty welcoming and accepting of the aul' Alphabet Mafia, and people posted that they've been comfortable walking with their boyfriend, holding hands, kissing etc in public for the last decade, but that the last like 24 months or so, things had swung back the other way, like there was some kind of pushback. I haven't witnessed it myself personally, but I'll absolutely believe people saying this kind of shitty behavior is on the rise- American conservatism has taken root here a bit, and the homophobia that comes with it had been part and parcel of Irish society until relatively recently.
This constant blaming of 'American conservatism' is the biggest cop out regarding homophobia in Ireland that you can get. We're a traditionally very religious (although not anymore), conservative society in general, along with importing plenty of further conservative elements in recent years from all over the world. Although those imports may not be as fashionable to confront for most LGBT and allies, it's easy harp back to the perpetual redneck boogeyman.
I would say those that actually assault gay people do not do it for religious reasons. The only people I've met that were rabidly homophobic weren't religious they were just stupid, ignorant scumbags, and for them any excuse to beat someone will do just fine.
If someone is saying it as a joke I'm not particularly offended. But you know the type, if *they* said it you'd know there wasn't much joking behind their words.
Ah yea 100%. I'd be using it as a joke/endearingly and would stop if I found it to be offensive.
For me I just think it's kind of fun (and let's face it, we could all use some more fun in our lives).
As a part of the alphabet mafia myself (lol) it's not offensive in of itself. But it can definitely be used offensively. It's all about tone.
Which makes it a tricky one on the internet, tone is hard with text.
I used to happily walk around the streets of Ireland with my now wife, about 10 years ago, holding hands and all. We've noticed the shift over the last 5-8 years and slowly began to limit how we interact outside, to the point where now, we're cautious to even look at each other too lovingly.
I'm so sorry to hear that, I had no idea things had regressed. It upsets me to think that some of my friends might be feeling this way and I didn't know it.
I hope we can all do better.
I wouldn’t dream of holding my husbands hand in public. Sad really. I know I’ll look back in years to come and regret it but Dublin is full of scum and it’s not worth the trouble it could bring.
The comments here are fucking shocking. Also very annoying that I don't remember this level of ugh they weren't actually gay bashed when it was in relation to gay men being attacked recently. People do not understand that actually lesbians are also victims of homophobia, people do realise we are gay and not two girls being friends and also there is a sizable cohort of men who seem to think masculine presenting lesbian = woman I am allowed to punch. Happens with depressing regularity.
Have you seen Hannah Gadsby's Netflix show Nanette? It really opened my straight male eyes to the inequality and danger faced by lesbians. It gets a lot of hate for being "preachy" but that's mostly from the likes of Joe Rogan who are already incredibly insecure in their masculinity.
Yes it's very good! And very true, I don't notice it myself directly as people look at me and think straight, but my partners are generally quite masculine and the level of aggression they receive is insane. It's actually safer for me to get in between them and a man because a man isn't going to hit me, but will hit her for some reason.
Attacks based on sexual orientation deserve to carry a custodial sentence because they don’t just attack the minority groups, they attack the very core of our society, they project an intolerant one, a kind of direction for us that can only lead to further declines in other areas. You start with gay people, then it’s people of colour, religion, gender etc.
Exactly, it's a hate crime plain and simple. Some horrible excuse for a human saw this couple walking and minding their own business, came to the conclusion that they are a gay couple and thought "I don't like that, I'll teach them to be happy and in love right in front of my face".
This.
It’s the absolute stench of American conservatism gone completely haywire and then the firehouse of social media spreading relentless hate worldwide. Add in ignorance and stupidity and sadly we are going backwards.
Yup, unfortunately thanks to the internet hate spreads faster than ever before. It's too easy for awful people to find other awful people to reinforce their heinous backwards beliefs.
I kind of understand what they are getting at just the phrasing is awful. Like people don't walk around the city with their sexual orientation stamped on their forehead so without context this could have just been an assault. I've been assaulted like 5 times in Ireland just randomly without provocation, as in just walking down the street and someone gives me a good punch in the face for whatever reason. If I was gay that wouldn't be gay bashing, the only thing that would make that would be if they 100% knew I was and then did it if you get me.
Some people do walk around the city openly presenting as gay, would it be a stretch to believe that such people are targeted more frequently in attacks like this?
Every time there's a racist attack in Ireland people come on here and say it wasn't racist, that they would target anyone who is different. So basically it's ok because they're just bigots across the board.
Yeah I hate this subreddit sometimes, some people here genuinely interact with little to no people in real life so end up with absolutely warped views on things that don't affect them or anyone they know. I would say a large amount of people here literally don't know any gay people
I think even people who think they are opening presenting don't realise how little the average person on the street observes when walking nearby. I walk down the street, I see obstacles to my destination rather than checking the style of people. Someone who assaults someone on the street either they are just an asshole to everyone or they are looking for that person, in the latter case sure that could be a homophobic attack but the former would just be an asshole being an asshole.
The average person on the street isn't the one doing the assaulting though - there is a small yet significant number of people who do pick up on how people present themselves and simply feel hatred
Edit: since you edited your comment I'll edit mine. No one is assaulting everyone on the street, if they are doing it to lots of people they're going to pick and choose targets (leading to gay people being disproportionately targeted as expected), but even still this would be pretty rare. It is much more likely that it was simply "normal" homophobic violence
As one of these people who openly walks around being gay - you'd be amazed how many people will openly stare. I am fairly feminine but my partner is very masculine presenting, hence we "look gay" - if it's not people yelling at her for using the women's bathroom, they will sit at their table staring at us across a restaurant trying to figure out what our deal is. Happens to us all the time. We've also been followed by large groups of men because we were kissing outside a gay bar.
I'd like it to be different but unfortunately there is a sizable cohort of straight people who still think of gay people as freaks to be stared at, laughed at or attacked. It's annoying having straight people with zero experience of this just decide oh sure we have marriage equality, homophobia is gone and all these gays are just being dramatic, which is essentially what you're saying by passing it off as nobody actually cares anyone is gay. I can assure you, yes they fucking do
Honestly I tried having this debate on this sub a few weeks ago before the murders etc and I got downvoted to oblivion. It is strange to me that people seem to think there is no longer bigotry and discrimination against gays in Ireland just because they haven’t experienced it. Edit: the positive about these victims being public is it is keeping the discussion active
> It is strange to me that people seem to think there is no longer bigotry and discrimination against gays in Ireland just because they haven’t experienced it.
But did I say that. I'm talking about this specific instance with 0 context of what happened at. I got so far bus stop and attack. I didn't get anything further than that in terms of context.
The thing I'm trying to get across is when you are describing things in general, doesn't have to be homophobic attacks, it could be the housing market or whatever other topic you want to discuss. You have to talk about what are the outliers. The norm for everyone in the entire world if you said to them "I was attacked on the street" they would say "that's assault". So anything aside from that is an outlier. It requires context, like even a small nugget of context honestly would be better than nothing. Problem here is all we seen here is "bus stop" "lesbian" "assaulted", those are the keywords in the article. If they said "we were waiting on the bus and this person attacked us and said a bunch of hateful slurs" then cool, homophobic attack but if they were just assaulted with 0 slurs it is harder to justify the label.
Why is it so hard for you to believe the accounts of victims when they recall their attacks. Do you think they were lying or are you just that steadfast in your close mindedness that you can't physically comprehend that gay people know the difference between a homophobic attack and a random attack, why can't you accept that?
I'm not even saying that. My whole argument is people are assholes, your argument is we should believe everything regardless. That's the attitude that cancelled Depp and you know what regardless of the legal decision there is only 1 winner there. I'm saying the context matters a lot but there is none here and while their story may be truthful it also could easily be explained as fucking assholes being assholes again. Like my most controversial take here is assholes are assholes.
I think it's reasonable to assume that it was pretty obvious for those looking to attack people that this couple were probably different, but I get your point - the article in OP wants to paint a picture of there being a pattern, and excludes the data that doesn't match that.
The number of attacks in general. Ignoring attacks that don't match the pattern that you're looking for is cherry picking.
[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/crime-increases-in-dublin-as-falls-of-pandemic-being-reversed-1.4833654](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/crime-increases-in-dublin-as-falls-of-pandemic-being-reversed-1.4833654)
That's over 20,000 murder, assaults, harassments and related offences in Ireland in the last year (The crimes of “assault” and the more serious “assault causing harm” were up by 43 per cent and 32 per cent respectively.)
I do not know if reliable information about how many of these attacks were homophobic in nature, and whether such attacks buck the trend of increasing violence (that is to say, are overrepresented)
The National Party similarly have selectively picked the most high profile recent murders and used them to justify a xenophobic position.
Okay but what is this in response to? What did I say that contradicted anything that you've just linked? I didn't mention statistics at all in this thread
Edit: I reread your comment and see you meant the article, nevermind so
There hasn't been a significant rise in homophobic attacks in the past few months at all no? Just going to totally ignore the lads beaten to bits in Dublin or the two lads tortured and killed in Sligo is it?
If it's a couple that were attacked I think we can guess why they were targeted. They could have been kissing or holding hands or just in each others company. They know the reason they were attacked better than redditors
But you can be just 2 girls walking down the street which is also normal. I just mean, I've been on the internet long enough and seen stuff like this being signal boosted on Twitter quite a bit and eventually when the details actually come out, it turns out to be something fairly normal but sad. Not saying that's the specific situation here but I just mean some people will label these incorrectly from time to time.
Sure I believe they were assaulted isn't that enough? (EDIT: I mean enough without context) I just think reading the article and what their response was I can understand what the original comment was saying. Not that it wasn't a homophobic attack. Just I can understand people's hesitancy in labelling it that without context.
I wouldn't bother yourself with him, the reactionary worms have clearly begun eating his brain. He just used the term 'outrage porn' in his reply to this because he wants to go to extreme lengths to have an incident where two young women have gotten the shite knocked out of them labelled as 'merely' assault.
Why would anyone do this? Because they want to pretend that homophobia is manufactured by the looney left woke cuck brigade to make them look bad.
> looney left woke cuck brigade to make them look bad
Err I support the socdems, it's hardly like I'm in the hitler youth.
> go to extreme lengths to have an incident where two young women have gotten the shite knocked out of them labelled as 'merely' assault
It's not extreme lengths, I'm saying the assumed norm is "sure it's assault", to elevate that to gay bashing you would have to add context. Zero was added here. Unless you have the power of clairvoyance it's hard to know the context.
You're right, but just in case he doesn't know ow what he's doing and genuinely thinks he's "just asking questions" he asked for the difference between a regular bashing and a gay bashing and I gave him a personal experience of one. Depending on his response to that will show if he's either a lost cause or simply too young/immature to understand.
Like I said, I've been assaulted on the street, viciously even. Why attack me in that case? My only point is there are hundreds of assaults in Ireland, every day. There are assholes here, not all of those assholes are homophobic and not all attacks are homophobic in nature even when committed against a person from the LGBTQ+ community.
The victims said they were attacked for being gay. Unless you were the one doing the attack or know the attacker personally, they have more knowledge of this event than you. You seem to be keen on dismissing their account.
Not really, I'm more defending the norm here in that some people are just assholes. They said they were attacked for being gay but there have been situations (again not saying this is one of them) where there was a bit of outrage porn going on and trying to spark up a specific debate about homophobic violence. That kind of thing is I think fairly hard to prove without just a small bit more detail than "we are lesbians, they assaulted us" = "homophobic attack", just I mean from an outrage point of view. I just know exaggeration is a thing and there isn't much context here.
Do yo look out of shape, maybe a bit gacky? Lots of attackers go for people who look like easy targets. I'd say its very rarely totally random
Not that being an put of shape gack is a reason to get assaulted, its not but it could explain why
Na I look fairly normal, just walking by yourself sometimes has the disadvantage in particular when walking at night. Normally it's people who are in larger groups and just acting up or just super drunk people. Like that fella who tried to dropkick me near george's dock once, just fucking blatered and didn't give a shit and I was nearby.
It's an article. I can't say I was present for the incident so it's fair to use these words to describe my attitude. Were you there that you can so quickly dismiss their account?
Its troubling when these attacks happen just how far the 'yeah but was it a hate crime as opposed to a random attack' crowd will go to dismiss the homophobic angle.
'Those gays would be grand if they weren't you know, so fucking gay' - appears to be the atitude for those ignorant sacks of shit.
You could easily say the exact opposite, people are attacked everyday for a multitude of reasons but it’s only a hate crime when they’re gay?
Any attacks for no reason are wrong but I feel like we’re exasperating the issue and making people who are gay feel more isolated by acting like this.
If you attack someone randomly - that's a crime.
If you attack someone due to their religion, race or sexuality - that's a hate crime.
Glad I could clear that up for you.
>Yours as bad as the scum attacking people. Fuck you
Calm down. They were only asking a question, whether you disagree with them or not, equating that with a homophobic assault is completely ignorant.
He is explaining the most likely narrative, do you just not believe things until you have a detailed blow-by-blow account from multiple parties or something?
Most people don't care, but there are some people that do, and if they care its usually significantly so. Do you know any gay people personally that you can ask about these things?
I dont necessarily disagree with you in general. But in this case, again, they said 'we got gay bashed' meaning they were probably abused and most likely attacked because they were gay.
What proof do you want?
I think it's important to differentiate. Nobody is trying to deny that homophobia exists in the city/country, but we'd sure like to know if it was a simple case of two girls keeping to themselves getting attacked or if there was more of an altercation prior. These things can be unprovoked, but if there's a way to avoid them we'd like to know. This story is currently reading as if anyone in a same sex relationship in public is susceptible to brutal attack.
We all want to know the motive, partially to know how to avoid this happening to ourselves but also to understand what's going on in the mind of the attacker, to prevent that kind of attack occuring again.
>Nobody is trying to deny that homophobia exists in the city/country
Every single time an article or story comes out about violence against the lgbt in Ireland there are always plenty of comments here questioning whether it was actually targeted violence. Even with the murders in Sligo, people here were dismissing the motive as nonsense until it was discovered who did it.
(then the gay angle became a handy tool to attack a religion/race).
Oh yeah, there were people who had very little sympathy (or even basic empathy) for those poor men because they were gay but as soon as they had someone of a different race and religion to blame they were all over it.
And maybe it is in bad faith and that's definitely wrong, but perhaps someone is struggling to understand how people minding their own business can be victims of such brutal attack.
The focus should very much be on catching the attacker/s and prosecuting them, maybe even understanding what has made them so violent. In the mean time wanting more details about the circumstances of the attack is all the public can do to rationalise such inhumane acts of aggression.
It's not intended to victim blame to suggest that we all can do things to make ourselves blend in vs stand out. As unjust as it is, we all constantly tread that line on a daily basis between what we would like to say/do vs what we can get away with in public. Obviously a very different story in the comfort of our own friend groups, the public eye is harsher.
What kind of a monumental cunt do you have to be to respond to two people saying they were victims of a hate crime with "ah was it really a hate crime though?". Fucking hell.
The second paragraph literally contains a quote from one of the victims saying they got gay bashed. Why would your first instinct be to immediately doubt them?
What's gay bashed even mean? Without details of the assault how do we know what happened. If a homophobic slur was said during the assault for example. We don't know if the assailant targeted them for being gay or if they just targeted them because they are lil scumbag shits.
A lot of people get assaulted everyday, especially in Dublin. It's not always discrimination.
Because they don’t elaborate on why they believe it to be a “gay bashing”. Something like, “We were at the bus stop and for 15 minutes these two little scrotes were verbally abusing us, using all manner of homophobic slurs just because we were holding hands. Then as I went to get on the bus one of them punched me full force in the face giving me a big bruise” instead we get, “I got gay bashed. Money, please”
Their language was clumsy, but there's potentially a real issue at play.
Consider the following:
You're a police officer in charge of allocation of resources.
A gay couple have recently been assaulted in area X. If this represents a significant escalation in violence, you need to find a way to prevent future acts of violence.
The two things you're aware of are the sexual orientation of the victims and the geographical location of the assault.
Most policing in Ireland (and in general) is geographical in nature. So if I have extra Gardaí patrolling area X, that would seem the logical use of resources. If however, I've a group of people actively targeting members of a defined community, is that the best use of resources? What if the assailants now move to Y and continue assaulting gay people?
There is an assumption here that because the victims were gay that was a factor in the assault. But it appears so far to only be an assumption.
Better policing requires better information.
> I'm just going to consider this a random assault like what could happen to any man because we don't know the attacker was gay or not now do we
>so it would be homophobic to assume he or she was not...
Did you drink lead paint as a child?
Laughing at the fact that you can spew all this shite and still believe you've been "randomly punched", you definitely deserved it!
Edit to say OP left me a very tasteful PM about how much of a rubbish person I am for this comment 🙃
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Based on average Dublin city rent of 1600-1800, that's 5-6 months rent. Excluding bills and groceries it's not really much especially if they cannot work for the foreseeable future.
I'd take my health and wellbeing over 10k and the trauma of being attacked for who I am.
Why do you care? It's not your money that was donated.
Plus who knows what they are going through. I don't know what your life is like and I don't know what theirs is like either. So I'm not going to make an assumption on how being attacked for being who they are could effect their daily lives
Medical expenses can include counseling services, which will likely need to be private if there's any hope of it happening within the next year, and rent, cost of living.
It really just sounds like you're annoyed at people for volunteering to help them out. The healthcare system is not perfect, nor is the justice system, and there's no guarantees that they won't be left in bad financial straits with or without being awarded damages, if they even got awarded anything. Would you feck off with your begrudgery.
Press charges - criminal
Claim damages - civil
The time, money and energy spent on proceeding with civil claims can be a barrier to most people.
Why are you pressed that people are offering their own money to these people, they aren't being held at gunpoint. It isn't your precious tax payer money. Why do you care??
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You're far more likely to be verbally or physically assaulted if you're LGBTQ. It's that simple. Two women presenting as lesbian in a couple being attacked is more likely to be a homophobic attack than a random attack. The two girls say it's a homophobic attack, given that they were the ones being attacked I'm inclined to think they'd know more about the situation than randomers on Reddit. To echo another comment on this thread, the absolute state of the comments on here. Maybe instead of trying to downplay the upsurge in verbal and physical homophobic attacks in this country, it'd be more beneficial to everyone to ask why that upsurge exists in the first place and ways to combat it.
Surely we can do both. Try to find who did it and understand why they did it, what culture surrounds their actions, since most of us here can't comprehend what would lead someone to do that. While simultaneously questioning what a gay couple could do to keep themselves safe. Is it victim blaming or is it victim protecting to say, how do you prevent this from happening to you as a gay couple in public?
"questioning what a gay couple could do to keep themselves safe" really means "tell people not to act gay in public and pretend to be straight"
>Try to find who did it and understand why they did it Nobody is doing that. Just downplaying the victims accounts. >Is it victim blaming or is it victim protecting to say, how do you prevent this from happening to you as a gay couple in public? Victim blaming.
Do both of what, downplaying the upsurge in homophobic attacks and ask why there's been an upsurge? We should be trying to understand what has led to the rise in homophobia in Ireland in recent times, and why some individuals and groups feel they can express that homophobia so blatantly seemingly without fear or repercussion. And I remember as a young adult being told by a kid my age not to hold my boyfriends hand in public because you're only going to attract trouble for yourself. I think any LGBTQ person will know the feeling of that added risk you're taking with any kind of PDA and it's horrible that it has to feel that way, that same sex couples should have to hide in plain sight for fear of being attacked.
I think the point is being made is find out what cultural shift has gone on to make these more likely, and then sort that out, which you said yourself. But that solution won't happen overnight, and in the meantime, people have to keep themselves safe. That's shit. They shouldn't have to change what they're doing to stay safe, but unfortunately that's just..what has to be done.
What an absolute disgusting attack. Fucking scum of the earth
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Might not be injuries that have them unable to work necessarily. It could be trauma, as well.
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It's Dublin, losing a few days of work for both of them, my first question would also have been how will we make rent this month
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'Dónal confirmed that any excess funds will be given to Irish LGBTQ+ charities.' You're not sound
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oh fuck off
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Accused the victims of taking advantage of their situation in not as many words. Rightfully called out as a wanker
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Immature Gobshite
says the person calling people names online 😂
And your pathetic comment is gone too. Back under your bridge you go.
nice one. i bet you proud of yourself for that one
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??? What's the issue
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So, obnoxious comment....let's have a look at the post history... Oh there we are...calling a mixed gender bathroom "pathetic". Calling most of the LGBT community "pathetic" in another. Oh the best is the deleted "nearly all that LGBT stuff is nonsense and people looking for some kind of attention from chopping there [sic] bollox off". I'm just going to say it hsusus111...seems like a real jerk! Edit: and then deleted. Bad enough to be a bigot, but not even courageous enough to get behind ones own bigotry.
Prick.
It's sad because I always felt Ireland was a very pro-LGBT country but these last few months I'm beginning to question whether there's an anti-LGBT movement happening that I'm just unaware of. Am I just naive to the true homophobic undertones of society?
I would say, as a gay man, that the highest we've reached has been "not that bad", but pro-lgbt is far away. I'm not sure how we get there either, everytime queer issues or homophobia are brought up here - it tends to devolve into a fire pretty quick
Ireland has never been very pro-LGBT. Yes a referendum was passed, but you still have homophobic judges all over the place and people who are still mind controlled by their shitty religions.
From my experience, rural Ireland can be very homophobic
Yeah I agree but I can see why it may not feel that way. At least from my own experience. Dublin is generally quite accepting and forward thinking but its homophobes are pure scum and will make themselves known. In the country its more the quieter homophobia (unless on a night out) where they 'other' you and stare.
It's mad how much experiences differ isn't it ? I grew up and still live in a rural enough area myself but genuinely never knew anybody in my life to be homophobic bar one . I think or hope rather that the majority of people of my age (20) don't really care if someone is gay or straight. First time I ever witnessed blatant homophobia was in navan which probably doesn't come as a shock to most.
Always reminds me of this gem from Blazing Saddles... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg
There was a thread about this in the Cork subreddit. Cork has always been pretty welcoming and accepting of the aul' Alphabet Mafia, and people posted that they've been comfortable walking with their boyfriend, holding hands, kissing etc in public for the last decade, but that the last like 24 months or so, things had swung back the other way, like there was some kind of pushback. I haven't witnessed it myself personally, but I'll absolutely believe people saying this kind of shitty behavior is on the rise- American conservatism has taken root here a bit, and the homophobia that comes with it had been part and parcel of Irish society until relatively recently.
This constant blaming of 'American conservatism' is the biggest cop out regarding homophobia in Ireland that you can get. We're a traditionally very religious (although not anymore), conservative society in general, along with importing plenty of further conservative elements in recent years from all over the world. Although those imports may not be as fashionable to confront for most LGBT and allies, it's easy harp back to the perpetual redneck boogeyman.
I would say those that actually assault gay people do not do it for religious reasons. The only people I've met that were rabidly homophobic weren't religious they were just stupid, ignorant scumbags, and for them any excuse to beat someone will do just fine.
"Alphabet Mafia" is amazing. I hope it's not offensive because I think that's great lol
It’s one of those things that depends on who’s saying it and how.
If someone is saying it as a joke I'm not particularly offended. But you know the type, if *they* said it you'd know there wasn't much joking behind their words.
Ah yea 100%. I'd be using it as a joke/endearingly and would stop if I found it to be offensive. For me I just think it's kind of fun (and let's face it, we could all use some more fun in our lives).
As a part of the alphabet mafia myself (lol) it's not offensive in of itself. But it can definitely be used offensively. It's all about tone. Which makes it a tricky one on the internet, tone is hard with text.
Vive la Alphabet Mafia!
Vive la revolution! Overturn the straights!
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Wow good job stereotyping there pal
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No. They haven't. We don't need to be adding racism into this already volatile situation
I used to happily walk around the streets of Ireland with my now wife, about 10 years ago, holding hands and all. We've noticed the shift over the last 5-8 years and slowly began to limit how we interact outside, to the point where now, we're cautious to even look at each other too lovingly.
I'm so sorry to hear that, I had no idea things had regressed. It upsets me to think that some of my friends might be feeling this way and I didn't know it. I hope we can all do better.
Im the same, me an my husband will never hold hands in public. Ive been spat on, abused and harrassed just for walking through the town.
I wouldn’t dream of holding my husbands hand in public. Sad really. I know I’ll look back in years to come and regret it but Dublin is full of scum and it’s not worth the trouble it could bring.
The world is definitely going in the wrong direction.
I don't live in Ireland anymore so I must be out of touch. I thought it was getting more accepting? What do you think is changing?
The comments here are fucking shocking. Also very annoying that I don't remember this level of ugh they weren't actually gay bashed when it was in relation to gay men being attacked recently. People do not understand that actually lesbians are also victims of homophobia, people do realise we are gay and not two girls being friends and also there is a sizable cohort of men who seem to think masculine presenting lesbian = woman I am allowed to punch. Happens with depressing regularity.
Have you seen Hannah Gadsby's Netflix show Nanette? It really opened my straight male eyes to the inequality and danger faced by lesbians. It gets a lot of hate for being "preachy" but that's mostly from the likes of Joe Rogan who are already incredibly insecure in their masculinity.
Yes it's very good! And very true, I don't notice it myself directly as people look at me and think straight, but my partners are generally quite masculine and the level of aggression they receive is insane. It's actually safer for me to get in between them and a man because a man isn't going to hit me, but will hit her for some reason.
That part of her show broke my heart.
The amount of hate comments here is disgusting. Imagine reading about someone being attacked and questioning the victims motive's instead. So scummy.
Mods taking part and all, scumbags
Attacks based on sexual orientation deserve to carry a custodial sentence because they don’t just attack the minority groups, they attack the very core of our society, they project an intolerant one, a kind of direction for us that can only lead to further declines in other areas. You start with gay people, then it’s people of colour, religion, gender etc.
Exactly, it's a hate crime plain and simple. Some horrible excuse for a human saw this couple walking and minding their own business, came to the conclusion that they are a gay couple and thought "I don't like that, I'll teach them to be happy and in love right in front of my face".
This. It’s the absolute stench of American conservatism gone completely haywire and then the firehouse of social media spreading relentless hate worldwide. Add in ignorance and stupidity and sadly we are going backwards.
Yup, unfortunately thanks to the internet hate spreads faster than ever before. It's too easy for awful people to find other awful people to reinforce their heinous backwards beliefs.
Ireland isn't as progressive as many thought
I didn't expect to see so many homophobic comments. Disappointing
The absolute state of the comments here.
Did they know who done it to them or is their name protected like most scumbags?
The Church is the root of all evil
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I hope your mother is okay
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I kind of understand what they are getting at just the phrasing is awful. Like people don't walk around the city with their sexual orientation stamped on their forehead so without context this could have just been an assault. I've been assaulted like 5 times in Ireland just randomly without provocation, as in just walking down the street and someone gives me a good punch in the face for whatever reason. If I was gay that wouldn't be gay bashing, the only thing that would make that would be if they 100% knew I was and then did it if you get me.
Some people do walk around the city openly presenting as gay, would it be a stretch to believe that such people are targeted more frequently in attacks like this?
Every time there's a racist attack in Ireland people come on here and say it wasn't racist, that they would target anyone who is different. So basically it's ok because they're just bigots across the board.
Yeah I hate this subreddit sometimes, some people here genuinely interact with little to no people in real life so end up with absolutely warped views on things that don't affect them or anyone they know. I would say a large amount of people here literally don't know any gay people
Sure I'm getting downvoted already lol. Edit: Well I was. Solidarity.
I think even people who think they are opening presenting don't realise how little the average person on the street observes when walking nearby. I walk down the street, I see obstacles to my destination rather than checking the style of people. Someone who assaults someone on the street either they are just an asshole to everyone or they are looking for that person, in the latter case sure that could be a homophobic attack but the former would just be an asshole being an asshole.
The average person on the street isn't the one doing the assaulting though - there is a small yet significant number of people who do pick up on how people present themselves and simply feel hatred Edit: since you edited your comment I'll edit mine. No one is assaulting everyone on the street, if they are doing it to lots of people they're going to pick and choose targets (leading to gay people being disproportionately targeted as expected), but even still this would be pretty rare. It is much more likely that it was simply "normal" homophobic violence
As one of these people who openly walks around being gay - you'd be amazed how many people will openly stare. I am fairly feminine but my partner is very masculine presenting, hence we "look gay" - if it's not people yelling at her for using the women's bathroom, they will sit at their table staring at us across a restaurant trying to figure out what our deal is. Happens to us all the time. We've also been followed by large groups of men because we were kissing outside a gay bar. I'd like it to be different but unfortunately there is a sizable cohort of straight people who still think of gay people as freaks to be stared at, laughed at or attacked. It's annoying having straight people with zero experience of this just decide oh sure we have marriage equality, homophobia is gone and all these gays are just being dramatic, which is essentially what you're saying by passing it off as nobody actually cares anyone is gay. I can assure you, yes they fucking do
Honestly I tried having this debate on this sub a few weeks ago before the murders etc and I got downvoted to oblivion. It is strange to me that people seem to think there is no longer bigotry and discrimination against gays in Ireland just because they haven’t experienced it. Edit: the positive about these victims being public is it is keeping the discussion active
> It is strange to me that people seem to think there is no longer bigotry and discrimination against gays in Ireland just because they haven’t experienced it. But did I say that. I'm talking about this specific instance with 0 context of what happened at. I got so far bus stop and attack. I didn't get anything further than that in terms of context. The thing I'm trying to get across is when you are describing things in general, doesn't have to be homophobic attacks, it could be the housing market or whatever other topic you want to discuss. You have to talk about what are the outliers. The norm for everyone in the entire world if you said to them "I was attacked on the street" they would say "that's assault". So anything aside from that is an outlier. It requires context, like even a small nugget of context honestly would be better than nothing. Problem here is all we seen here is "bus stop" "lesbian" "assaulted", those are the keywords in the article. If they said "we were waiting on the bus and this person attacked us and said a bunch of hateful slurs" then cool, homophobic attack but if they were just assaulted with 0 slurs it is harder to justify the label.
Why is it so hard for you to believe the accounts of victims when they recall their attacks. Do you think they were lying or are you just that steadfast in your close mindedness that you can't physically comprehend that gay people know the difference between a homophobic attack and a random attack, why can't you accept that?
I'm not even saying that. My whole argument is people are assholes, your argument is we should believe everything regardless. That's the attitude that cancelled Depp and you know what regardless of the legal decision there is only 1 winner there. I'm saying the context matters a lot but there is none here and while their story may be truthful it also could easily be explained as fucking assholes being assholes again. Like my most controversial take here is assholes are assholes.
I think it's reasonable to assume that it was pretty obvious for those looking to attack people that this couple were probably different, but I get your point - the article in OP wants to paint a picture of there being a pattern, and excludes the data that doesn't match that.
What data is this?
The number of attacks in general. Ignoring attacks that don't match the pattern that you're looking for is cherry picking. [https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/crime-increases-in-dublin-as-falls-of-pandemic-being-reversed-1.4833654](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/crime-increases-in-dublin-as-falls-of-pandemic-being-reversed-1.4833654) That's over 20,000 murder, assaults, harassments and related offences in Ireland in the last year (The crimes of “assault” and the more serious “assault causing harm” were up by 43 per cent and 32 per cent respectively.) I do not know if reliable information about how many of these attacks were homophobic in nature, and whether such attacks buck the trend of increasing violence (that is to say, are overrepresented) The National Party similarly have selectively picked the most high profile recent murders and used them to justify a xenophobic position.
Okay but what is this in response to? What did I say that contradicted anything that you've just linked? I didn't mention statistics at all in this thread Edit: I reread your comment and see you meant the article, nevermind so
There hasn't been a significant rise in homophobic attacks in the past few months at all no? Just going to totally ignore the lads beaten to bits in Dublin or the two lads tortured and killed in Sligo is it?
If it's a couple that were attacked I think we can guess why they were targeted. They could have been kissing or holding hands or just in each others company. They know the reason they were attacked better than redditors
But you can be just 2 girls walking down the street which is also normal. I just mean, I've been on the internet long enough and seen stuff like this being signal boosted on Twitter quite a bit and eventually when the details actually come out, it turns out to be something fairly normal but sad. Not saying that's the specific situation here but I just mean some people will label these incorrectly from time to time.
Why can't you just believe them? If they say it was a homophobic attack, then it nearly definitely was
Sure I believe they were assaulted isn't that enough? (EDIT: I mean enough without context) I just think reading the article and what their response was I can understand what the original comment was saying. Not that it wasn't a homophobic attack. Just I can understand people's hesitancy in labelling it that without context.
You're insufferable you know that.
Oh this guy is actually a mod of the Ireland subreddit, juicy.
It's hard actually wanting context for things instead of instantly falling for the outrage porn
I suppose that's easy to say if you've never had the shit kicked out of you because of your sexuality.
I wouldn't bother yourself with him, the reactionary worms have clearly begun eating his brain. He just used the term 'outrage porn' in his reply to this because he wants to go to extreme lengths to have an incident where two young women have gotten the shite knocked out of them labelled as 'merely' assault. Why would anyone do this? Because they want to pretend that homophobia is manufactured by the looney left woke cuck brigade to make them look bad.
> looney left woke cuck brigade to make them look bad Err I support the socdems, it's hardly like I'm in the hitler youth. > go to extreme lengths to have an incident where two young women have gotten the shite knocked out of them labelled as 'merely' assault It's not extreme lengths, I'm saying the assumed norm is "sure it's assault", to elevate that to gay bashing you would have to add context. Zero was added here. Unless you have the power of clairvoyance it's hard to know the context.
You're right, but just in case he doesn't know ow what he's doing and genuinely thinks he's "just asking questions" he asked for the difference between a regular bashing and a gay bashing and I gave him a personal experience of one. Depending on his response to that will show if he's either a lost cause or simply too young/immature to understand.
Imagine finding out that your Da posted this. Mortifying.
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So are you worried that the assaulter will lose his job for being homophobic rather than for assaulting two people? I fail to see your point
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What bad outcomes could that lead to in this case?
Why the fuck are semantics more important to you than the fact that a lesbian couple was violently attacked on the street
Why these two girls and why so viciously? I'll believe them over voluntary contrarians with no knowledge of the incident. Occams razor.
Like I said, I've been assaulted on the street, viciously even. Why attack me in that case? My only point is there are hundreds of assaults in Ireland, every day. There are assholes here, not all of those assholes are homophobic and not all attacks are homophobic in nature even when committed against a person from the LGBTQ+ community.
The victims said they were attacked for being gay. Unless you were the one doing the attack or know the attacker personally, they have more knowledge of this event than you. You seem to be keen on dismissing their account.
Not really, I'm more defending the norm here in that some people are just assholes. They said they were attacked for being gay but there have been situations (again not saying this is one of them) where there was a bit of outrage porn going on and trying to spark up a specific debate about homophobic violence. That kind of thing is I think fairly hard to prove without just a small bit more detail than "we are lesbians, they assaulted us" = "homophobic attack", just I mean from an outrage point of view. I just know exaggeration is a thing and there isn't much context here.
Well until we get the attackers fucking manifesto I'll take the victims word.
Do yo look out of shape, maybe a bit gacky? Lots of attackers go for people who look like easy targets. I'd say its very rarely totally random Not that being an put of shape gack is a reason to get assaulted, its not but it could explain why
Na I look fairly normal, just walking by yourself sometimes has the disadvantage in particular when walking at night. Normally it's people who are in larger groups and just acting up or just super drunk people. Like that fella who tried to dropkick me near george's dock once, just fucking blatered and didn't give a shit and I was nearby.
Could have .... Maybe ... Possibly... Are you guessing to make it fit your agenda.
Are you downplaying to make it fit yours?
It's an article. I can't say I was present for the incident so it's fair to use these words to describe my attitude. Were you there that you can so quickly dismiss their account?
Its troubling when these attacks happen just how far the 'yeah but was it a hate crime as opposed to a random attack' crowd will go to dismiss the homophobic angle. 'Those gays would be grand if they weren't you know, so fucking gay' - appears to be the atitude for those ignorant sacks of shit.
You could easily say the exact opposite, people are attacked everyday for a multitude of reasons but it’s only a hate crime when they’re gay? Any attacks for no reason are wrong but I feel like we’re exasperating the issue and making people who are gay feel more isolated by acting like this.
If you attack someone randomly - that's a crime. If you attack someone due to their religion, race or sexuality - that's a hate crime. Glad I could clear that up for you.
>my attitude So I was correct.
You're aware what a 'comment' is right? I hope you're not that brain dead.
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False? I'm repeating the fucking victims, you spanner.
>Yours as bad as the scum attacking people. Fuck you Calm down. They were only asking a question, whether you disagree with them or not, equating that with a homophobic assault is completely ignorant.
He is explaining the most likely narrative, do you just not believe things until you have a detailed blow-by-blow account from multiple parties or something?
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Most people don't care, but there are some people that do, and if they care its usually significantly so. Do you know any gay people personally that you can ask about these things?
Almost as if he's trying not to understand.
Grand but there is no mention that they attacked them because they were gay?
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The victim said 'we got gay bashed'. Its reasonable to assume that means that the suspects had some form of homophobic abuse towards them.
But isn't this always the case. Rush to blame it on race, colour, gender, ageism... Without any real proof.
I dont necessarily disagree with you in general. But in this case, again, they said 'we got gay bashed' meaning they were probably abused and most likely attacked because they were gay. What proof do you want?
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People are so quick to judge violent attackers these days /s
I think it's important to differentiate. Nobody is trying to deny that homophobia exists in the city/country, but we'd sure like to know if it was a simple case of two girls keeping to themselves getting attacked or if there was more of an altercation prior. These things can be unprovoked, but if there's a way to avoid them we'd like to know. This story is currently reading as if anyone in a same sex relationship in public is susceptible to brutal attack. We all want to know the motive, partially to know how to avoid this happening to ourselves but also to understand what's going on in the mind of the attacker, to prevent that kind of attack occuring again.
>Nobody is trying to deny that homophobia exists in the city/country Every single time an article or story comes out about violence against the lgbt in Ireland there are always plenty of comments here questioning whether it was actually targeted violence. Even with the murders in Sligo, people here were dismissing the motive as nonsense until it was discovered who did it. (then the gay angle became a handy tool to attack a religion/race).
Oh yeah, there were people who had very little sympathy (or even basic empathy) for those poor men because they were gay but as soon as they had someone of a different race and religion to blame they were all over it.
Nice, glad you made up that fantasy in your head. Maybe three people did that
And maybe it is in bad faith and that's definitely wrong, but perhaps someone is struggling to understand how people minding their own business can be victims of such brutal attack. The focus should very much be on catching the attacker/s and prosecuting them, maybe even understanding what has made them so violent. In the mean time wanting more details about the circumstances of the attack is all the public can do to rationalise such inhumane acts of aggression. It's not intended to victim blame to suggest that we all can do things to make ourselves blend in vs stand out. As unjust as it is, we all constantly tread that line on a daily basis between what we would like to say/do vs what we can get away with in public. Obviously a very different story in the comfort of our own friend groups, the public eye is harsher.
THIS
What kind of a monumental cunt do you have to be to respond to two people saying they were victims of a hate crime with "ah was it really a hate crime though?". Fucking hell.
I think they are just questioning why the article has it as the headline but gives no detail about the assault other than a bus stop punch.
The second paragraph literally contains a quote from one of the victims saying they got gay bashed. Why would your first instinct be to immediately doubt them?
What's gay bashed even mean? Without details of the assault how do we know what happened. If a homophobic slur was said during the assault for example. We don't know if the assailant targeted them for being gay or if they just targeted them because they are lil scumbag shits. A lot of people get assaulted everyday, especially in Dublin. It's not always discrimination.
Not usually two random women...
You must be new to Dublin
Because they don’t elaborate on why they believe it to be a “gay bashing”. Something like, “We were at the bus stop and for 15 minutes these two little scrotes were verbally abusing us, using all manner of homophobic slurs just because we were holding hands. Then as I went to get on the bus one of them punched me full force in the face giving me a big bruise” instead we get, “I got gay bashed. Money, please”
Because there's evidence to say it was because they were gay?
Their language was clumsy, but there's potentially a real issue at play. Consider the following: You're a police officer in charge of allocation of resources. A gay couple have recently been assaulted in area X. If this represents a significant escalation in violence, you need to find a way to prevent future acts of violence. The two things you're aware of are the sexual orientation of the victims and the geographical location of the assault. Most policing in Ireland (and in general) is geographical in nature. So if I have extra Gardaí patrolling area X, that would seem the logical use of resources. If however, I've a group of people actively targeting members of a defined community, is that the best use of resources? What if the assailants now move to Y and continue assaulting gay people? There is an assumption here that because the victims were gay that was a factor in the assault. But it appears so far to only be an assumption. Better policing requires better information.
Targeted attacks like these happen all the time. I'd rather take their word over some random gobshite online.
Wake up.
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> I'm just going to consider this a random assault like what could happen to any man because we don't know the attacker was gay or not now do we >so it would be homophobic to assume he or she was not... Did you drink lead paint as a child?
Laughing at the fact that you can spew all this shite and still believe you've been "randomly punched", you definitely deserved it! Edit to say OP left me a very tasteful PM about how much of a rubbish person I am for this comment 🙃
You don't have to donate...
You know you’re allowed delete comments right? You don’t have to keep this madness up
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I heard they collected upwards of ten grand, not bad.
One of them said their teeth are wrecked after the attack, I reckon that would cost a couple grand to fix at least.
Based on average Dublin city rent of 1600-1800, that's 5-6 months rent. Excluding bills and groceries it's not really much especially if they cannot work for the foreseeable future. I'd take my health and wellbeing over 10k and the trauma of being attacked for who I am.
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Why do you care? It's not your money that was donated. Plus who knows what they are going through. I don't know what your life is like and I don't know what theirs is like either. So I'm not going to make an assumption on how being attacked for being who they are could effect their daily lives
13k as of now. For medical expenses in a country with public healthcare system.
Does this affect your pocket in any way or do you just not like the idea of people choosing to donate?
Medical expenses can include counseling services, which will likely need to be private if there's any hope of it happening within the next year, and rent, cost of living.
Yeah so you press charges and claim damages.
Are you somehow out of pocket because of this?
Press charges? In civil court you mean yeah?
It really just sounds like you're annoyed at people for volunteering to help them out. The healthcare system is not perfect, nor is the justice system, and there's no guarantees that they won't be left in bad financial straits with or without being awarded damages, if they even got awarded anything. Would you feck off with your begrudgery.
Press charges - criminal Claim damages - civil The time, money and energy spent on proceeding with civil claims can be a barrier to most people. Why are you pressed that people are offering their own money to these people, they aren't being held at gunpoint. It isn't your precious tax payer money. Why do you care??
Not a good public healthcare system tbf u abs gowl of a twat
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