Three-Year-Old Twin Girls Have Been Attacked In Alleged Transphobic Hate Crime
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Media in Ireland has reported that two twin girls, aged just three years old, have been assaulted in what’s believed to be a transphobic hate crime attack against the twins’ father.
The attack reportedly occurred at a park in north Belfast. The toddlers father, a transgender man, had taken the twins to the park to play, when he and his children were accosted by group of approximately 10 children, all aged 12 years old.
The group allegedly began to verbally abuse and physically assault the toddlers.
The Irish Sun reports that the group began mocking the young girls, then launching into a bevy of transphobic insults directed at their father. After this, it’s alleged the group began pushing and shoving the toddlers.
Their shocked father says he grabbed his daughters as quickly as he could, and took them home.
Local police in Ireland are currently looking into the attack, and have appealed to the local community for witnesses, in order to find more information about the incident and the attackers.
Cops who are investigating have described the incident as an “assault”.
A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) spokesperson said:
“In addition to our social media appeal, enquiries remain ongoing into this report of a transphobic-motivated hate crime.”
Trans community advocate in Belfast speaks out
Adrianne Elson, a Belfast transgender woman who has previously spoken out on issues affecting the trans community in Belfast, told The Irish Sun that the incident was “horrific.”
“These were children themselves doing this, some of them around 12-years-old, who should have known better but it went on and on as they tried to go home,” she said.
“They were saying to the twins ‘your dad’s a girl’ at first and laughing but it just got worse and worse and more and more threatening.
“The twins didn’t know what to do. They’re only three. One of these young people had pulled one of the girls off one of the rides in the park at the outset which really upset her.
“They followed them out of the park at Glenbryn and started tripping them up and physically pushing them.
“One of the twins was pushed into a wall and hit her head.
“It was so upsetting and frightening for these children and their dad.
“Why would anyone do this? What on earth is going on in their heads?”
Elson said the father managed to get his daughters home, be reportedly but broke down as he embraced them afterwards.
“The horror that they all went through, I don’t even have the words for it,” said Elson.
“The man could only try to get the girls away because he couldn’t touch any of these people, they were just children themselves.
“As a parent you feel compelled to physically intervene, but that would make you guilty of assault on a minor.”
Trans parents anxious that their children could experience hate crimes
Elson told the Sun that parents who are transgender feel guilt and worry when thinking about how their children will be treated in a society that is transphobic.
“This is a transphobic situation, as the police have confirmed,” Elson explains.
“And it was just waiting to happen because things are getting worse and worse for trans people.
“We are in a far more transphobic society than we were several years ago.
“It’s so worrying for trans parents about how their children will be treated in the years ahead and it causes an immense amount of guilt, worry, anxiety.”
