Members of Liverpool's LGBT+ community are planning to protest on Church Street tomorrow after a recent spate of homophobic attacks in the city centre.
At least four people have spoken publicly about suspected hate crimes against them and their friends in the last month. Three were within the last two weeks.
A young woman, her girlfriend and her sister were attacked and threatened with rape and murder in the city at the end of May.
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A gay couple and their friend were attacked with a knife and homophobic slurs on June 11., while two 19-year-old bisexual friends, Curtis Stewart and Josh Ormrod, were battered in separate assaults only days apart last week.
Speaking to the ECHO, an organiser of Tuesday's protest, Naomi (not their real name), said: "Two of the boys who got attacked recently, actually I go to uni with. I'm friends with one, I'm really close with the other guy."
Naomi, a 19-year-old student, added: “Nowhere in Liverpool is safe. I went through a stage of being upset about that. I started walking through the streets expecting to be attacked, like waiting to be hit, being like, ‘Oh no I’m next. There’s no way I’m not going to be hit if they’re being hit'."
Both organisers of the protest, Naomi and Sasha (not her real name), work in LGBT+ venues in Liverpool's "gay quarter", centred around Stanley Street. Neither wants to be named for fear of repercussions.
Sasha, a 20-year-old trans woman, told the ECHO: "I can't walk down the street in Liverpool on a busy Friday afternoon without getting t**** f** f**** cross dresser, you name it. I get everything shouted at me."
When Sasha was attacked two years ago, she didn't want to tell anyone.
She said: "I didn't tell a soul. It's embarrassing. I think it's far more than just the three. I think those that have come out to tell us are very brave, and it's admirable, but I think there's far more."
Naomi, a bar worker and part-time drag queen, said: "The worst part is that there is no safe space. Like there's a gay community, there's a gay street, but even that gay street has straight clubs and straight people going in between.
"And I'm not just being like, ‘Oh straight people are attacking us and stuff’. But it's not gay people punching gay people, let's be real."
All Naomi's routes home after a night at work or out socialising involve walking through the areas where LGBT+ people were recently attacked. They said: "I don't have a safe route home unless I spend my money on the taxi, which I don't have."
For both Naomi and Sasha, it feels like there is no escape from the threat of abuse or attack.
Sasha said: "Everywhere I go, I will have headphones in, blasting music down my ear because I don’t want to hear what people have got to say to me. It's disgusting."
The hostess and drag performer added: "You just want to go get your lunch without someone screaming at you, or shielding their kids away from you."
She said people's reactions to her in public are "embarrassing" and "degrading".
Members of Liverpool's LGBT+ community have taken to social media, angry that Pride Month, in a year when many Pride events are cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, has been marred by a series of suspected homophobic attacks.
Naomi said: "I’m just angry because it’s Pride Month, and I’m really p***** off that people are trying to take my right away to feel safe walking through the street. That’s just not right.
"Like we walked through town past Primark the other day, and on their Pride collection outside on a sign says ‘no f***’, which has been there for a week."
Naomi moved to Liverpool for university in September. They told the ECHO : "The moment I moved here, I felt so welcomed, so respected. I've never felt so welcome as a gay man.
"And then all of a sudden it's like all these things are happening. Liverpool isn’t speaking up."
The protest will start on the corner of Church Street and Paradise Street at 1pm on Tuesday. People will then march up to St Johns shopping centre and down through Williamson Square, finishing at Victoria Street.
Lush on Church Street said in an Instagram post that they will have cardboard and pens available for people to make placards in store from 11.30am.
The protest organisers have warned people to travel in groups.
