We need more than signs and slogans
Calls to declare Oxford St a homophobia-free zone are laudable -” but what will it take to translate them into a lasting reality for our community?
Surry Hills Police Commander Donna Adney seems to have a good grasp of the problem, though her choice of metaphors a fortnight ago was perhaps a little indelicate. It’s like going to a brothel and not expecting to see prostitutes. Don’t go to the Midnight Shift and think that you’re not going to see gay men, said Adney.
Personally, Chinese people and Chinatown came to mind -” and if carloads of racist thugs were choosing to make Chinatown their party central while terrorising Asian Australians, NSW would know there was a problem and something would be done about it.
Yet with a Cronulla riot’s worth of violence directed at the gay community in this state each month, we’re still yet to see homophobic violence become an issue of real priority with our State Government.
Locally, even a doubling of the police presence on the strip won’t do much to stamp out the problem -” thugs see the uniform and desist while police pass, but once out of sight it’s back to the same. And what of all the back streets where bashings and intimidation occur also? Police can’t be everywhere at once.
If something is going to break the pattern of behaviour it has to surprise the thugs when they’re acting at their worst.
In comparable jurisdictions where sex workers have become targets of deranged individuals, it’s been common practice for police to employ undercover operations with officers posing as streetwalkers to tempt perpetrators out.
Putting plainclothes officers on the street in party gear and doing something as simple as walking them through known problem points holding hands would get thugs out of the woodwork and bring problem individuals to police.
Police could take down offenders’ details and book them on an offensive language charge when the homophobic slurs ring out, and if anything more serious occurred, other officers could be waiting in the wings to pounce.
We also know from residents that many of these individuals drive to Oxford St, often returning periodically to their vehicles to do drugs before driving home with a skinful in the early hours of the morning.
Targeted RBT operations in the vicinity may also do a lot to encourage these individuals to find alternative haunts.
Repeat this sort of operation over a couple of months and the strip could soon be liveable once again.
I agree with Aaron.
All of Australia should be declared a ‘homophobia free zone’. Does that mean it will be acceptable out in the suburbs?.
Paul, your assertion that the only people who attack gays in Australia are closeted gay men is not just totally incorrect- it’s totally offensive.
If you’re going to keep making these sorts of bizarre statements about issues you clearly know nothing about, I think most people would appreciate it if you stopped calling yourself a gay activist.
Stop blaming Muslims and heterosexual males, it is not them at all. This is just -œtypical Muslim bashing. I am a gay man who has several Muslim friends. It is the single closeted [not out] gays between the ages of 14 to 28 – Who do not accept themselves as gay who cause most of the bashings.
“You are implying that the perpetrators are white bogans from the Shire”- actually hdp that’s not what I’m implying at all.
I was implying that the number of gay men beaten up in homophobic assaults each month in this state is similar to the number of people attacked during the Cronulla riots, yet while that series of events resulted in a national debate about race and racism, attacks on us have not resulted in a similar conversation about homophobia and sexuality occurring- even at a state level. That is all.
I agree that many of the perpetrators of homophobic assaults around Oxford Street are from middle eastern backgrounds, though I’m sure some of them are from Christian families as well as Muslims, and working class Australians from European backgrounds still make up a large proportion of attackers. Sometimes it’s Pacific Islanders, and occasionally it’s Indigenous Australians.
On the other hand we almost never hear about homophobic attacks being perpetrated by Asian Australians from traditionally Buddhist countries or by Indians from Hindu or Sikh backgrounds.
“Yet with a Cronulla riot’s worth of violence directed at the gay community in this state each month”
What a ludicrous statement. You are implying that the perpetrators are white bogans from the Shire, whereas I’ve witnessed more hostility towards gays from Lebanese Muslims.
Also, the Chinese can defend their turf because they have the cajones to stand up and look after their community, whereas the ponces in Australia’s so-called “gay capital” just run away squealing clutching their handbags.