My Own Gay Bashing Story and Why SAVE needs to do more.

So I want to put  into context my feelings about SAVE, a Miami based LGBTQ rights organization. I want them to understand, that supporting indicted gay bashers, then getting caught, and blaming it all on their Executive Director, firing him and then all "Hey we've turned the page!" and "Let's move on!" I mean who cares about the victims, or the community? It's all a clean slate now that SAVE's hired a temporary ED.

Here's my story:

I moved to Miami's South Beach when I  was 20 and in college. I lived in a ground floor apartment in the building on the corner of 3rd Street and Washington, I was the only gay man in a deco building full  of old Jewish ladies. My apartment faced the street and friends would often yell through my window from the sidewalk.

At that age I was quite attractive, not in a masculine way, but in a lithesome feminine way. The way non-athletic teenage boys can sometimes appear. I had pretty curly hair, plump cheeks a very full lips.  Don't get me wrong, I still had a preppy, straight boy demeanor from the 'burbs, but every now and then.....the fairy in me would take over, usually around Halloween, and I'd pick up a cute dress from the thrift store, buy some cheap, but sensible, pumps at Woolworths and steal some lipstick and mascara from a girlfriend. I'd be ready for Halloween festivities!

One year, I found a lovely strawberry red dress with crinolines, not a hoop skirt, but very much like a poodle skirt from the movie Peggy Sue Got Married. Oh, it was lovely, when I spun it would twirl up! The thrift shop queen said I reminded him of Gale Storm, a 40's actress. At last! I was a happy gay boy from the suburbs living my ridiculous gay life in South Beach. 

That Halloween I went to a block party 3 blocks from my door, in front of the bar named Torpedo. I danced and twirled for hours, my dress looking fantastic and finally feeling my gay self with my friends. A care free night, then it was time to walk home, I could even see my building from 5th street. Drunkenly I actually started skipping there.....

But as every pretty girl and lithesome gay boy knows....there is a price to pay for wearing pretty dresses on Halloween night in poorly lit urban neighborhoods.....

In  that short distance home a car pulled up beside me, three young men jumped out, and I knew the score, that scales were being evened out....I ran, I ran as fast as I could. Just feet from my gate, I felt his hands grab my neck, the red strapless dress being ripped off my back. I got in, I ran through the courtyard which always smelled of night blooming jasmine. I was still running and I could actually feel his breath against my exposed back and neck. 

I got to my door, they were less than two or three feet behind me. I opened my door, and they started to crowd me in my studio apartment. I'm in a torn dress, the realization in their eyes that I was a boy and the lead pipe in my hand (which I kept by the door) as I ran at them. Two of them got out, one of them got a lead pipe to the back. They ran to the street yelling "maricon!" "faggot!" in English and Spanish.

Relieved they ran away, I sat and trembled and felt, in my small home, safe at last.  

CRASH!!! CRASH!!!CRASH!!!CRASH!!! All my windows facing the street came raining in on me. Fuck, I'm not even safe in my own home I thought.

Nothing happened after that. I did not call the police. My landlord fixed the windows. I defended myself and my home.  From  that point on, I knew that there was no "safe" gay space, my own home was exposed to the street. I think of those young men who were bashed at Gay Pride, by thugs who were honored at SAVE to realize, that it's not a safe space from homophobia either.