Hate Crime in Brighton- Maybe we need to get out more?

I’m still recovering from a summer of Faerie Gatherings!

Faerie-space is where I’ve been able to allow my spiritual queerness to be fully present, affirmed and celebrated. Over the years I’ve really benefitted from the opportunity to be quiet in nature. Here I've revealed to others my most shameful aspects. And here I’ve found love and acceptance not in spite of my perceived shortcomings but because of them!

I decided therefore, to offer myself in service to this fabulous, anarchic gang of consciousness developers. So I put myself forward to facilitate three consecutive gatherings during July and August.

First of all was Faerie Sex Magick at Folleterre, the Euro-Faerie Sanctuary in France. Thirteen brave Faeries together with 3 facilitators and a cook came together for an week of intensive heart circles exploring our barriers to intimacy. Our objective: to reach a point where all of us could agree that we had developed a deep enough emotional understanding of each other to safely enter into an erotic space together. This was my sixth workshop and, as always, there was much to learn from this very unique form of emotional skinny dipping!

Exposed to an angry participant I was opened up to my extreme avoidance of unpredictable anger and violence. Though my father is dead and gone, the wounding he inflicted on me with his aggressive volatility, was still very much alive in me as a pattern of pretending I didn’t need anger as part of my emotional life. I realise now that depriving myself and others of this vibrant aspect of my self-expression gives an indistinct and unreal feel of ‘who I am’ making if difficult for others to fully engage emotionally with me. So now I’m tuning-in to, and expressing my anger as it arises. What a refreshing change!

My next two gatherings were the Global closely followed by the Afterglow Gathering.

The Global Gatherings are a controversial development for the Faeries in that rather than making a call to Sanctuary for established Faeries, there is an active intention to reach out to activists in those parts of the world where there is no Faerie culture, raising funds to assist with air travel and subsistence, and shifting the focus away from inner/interpersonal healing towards outer and inter-continental healing.

For whatever reason the LGBTI+ human rights position in UK is now very privileged compared with many countries across the globe.

And, sure, there’s hate crime in Brighton but it’s nothing compared with the hate cultures I’ve been hearing about from activists in Chechnya, Uganda, Pakistan, Benin, Singapore, and Beijing.

Prior to my encounter with the Faeries I was an assimilationist, desperate to prove to anyone that I was just quite ordinary apart from my sexuality. Now as a Faerie I know that I am quite extra-ordinary because of my sexuality.

I’m feeling my anger rising against queer hatred and I’m recognising it as a valuable element of my Faerie-Superpowers! 

Watch out hate-crime-bitches. We're coming for you!!

Why do we feel unsafe in our communities?

My man has the unfortunate habit of reading The Argus and is consequently exposed to a constant litany of the aggressive violence that takes place on a daily basis in and around our beautiful city. He reads out to me the most horrific stories. Last Saturday at 2 am a couple of students were set about by a gang of 5 drug-crazed youths in the centre of Brighton. The attack involved broken bottles and resulted in facial disfigurement ‘beyond recognition’ for the two victims.

 With each story I am thankful that I’m not the victim! I try to remind myself that hearing stories reported in this way is likely to engender a disproportionate sense of danger. These events are relatively rare yet hearing reports one after the other from the various corners of Sussex makes it seem like I’m practically guaranteed a good beating every time I set foot on St James’ Street.

 Yesterday my man read out yet another story: ‘GAY MEN INVOLVED AS PERPETRATORS OF VIOLENT CRIME’. Two gay guys had attacked an elderly woman in Kemptown. One had held her down whilst the other did her hair and make-up! Hmmm! Funny!

 When I was younger I used to feel more vulnerable to homophobic violence. Now I’m older and spend less time out in the city at night I just feel vulnerable to gratuitous drug fuelled violence. The older and frailer I become, the more I feel like a potential target when in the proximity of  ‘merry’ youths. This growing sense of insecurity doesn’t really seem to be the fault of inadequate community policing. It’s more like it’s the consequence of failing to address the cultural, moral, and aspirational poverty of an ever-growing underclass of unfortunates who live in our midst.

Having said this a couple of months ago my young friend Carl was out in town with his partner. It was late and they were both a bit drunk. They were walking by the Theatre Royal towards the taxi rank. Just as they walked by Mrs Fitzherbert’s they were approached by a couple of well groomed, well spoken, ostensibly straight men who asked them where the nearest nightclubs were. Before they could answer, one of the guys, noticing my friends had their arms linked and sensing they were gay said: ‘Oh fuck-a couple of queers’ and slugged Carl in the mouth knocking one of his front teeth out and flooring him. A witness in the pub immediately called the police who were there so quickly that the assailant could be pointed out  just a hundred yards down the street. But bizarrely, the police refused to pursue the attacker without confirmation from the unconscious Carl that he wished to press charges! The next day when Carl reported the attack he was underwhelmed by the police response which seemed more like politically correct lip-service- making sure the paperwork had been completed and the statistics compiled rather than there being any intention to attempt to apprehend this malignant homophobe.

We hear from our gay community police liaison officer that we must come forward and report homophobic hate crime but really with stories like this it does make you wonder what’s the point!