Two married drag queens were left “traumatised” after being viciously attacked and beaten in the street just for holding hands.
George Sullovan, 25, was out with husband Jason, 27, enjoying a meal and a drink.
They left a bar in Bournemouth, on Monday 6 March, hand-in-hand, as any couple would.
But they were subject to cruel homophobic taunts and verbal abuse from a group of six boys before they launched a sickening physical attack on them.
They were left battered and bruised, with Jason suffering a black eye after the attack.
George described the attack as “very traumatising” and one of their assailants threatened to put Jason in a wheelchair for life.
He explained how him and his husband don’t usually hold hands in public because the last time they did a few years ago they were verbally abused.
Speaking to Pink News, George said: “One of them ran up to my husband, pushed him onto the floor and started to hit him.
“My first thought was, because Jason recently dislocated his knee at one of our shows and has been in recovery for over a month, his knee could be made worse.
“I told the person attacking to leave him alone and said he’d recently injured his knee, and he said: ‘Oh, I’ll put him in a wheelchair for life.'”
The two were able to get back into the bar but two of the group pursued them and hit Jason again in the face.
Since the attack, Jason has suffered some pain in his knee, that he injured in January and spent weeks recovering from prior to the assault.
The husbands are both drag queens, and use drag as a way to empower themselves are having survived abusive relationships.
But George said the greatest toll of the attack was the one it took mentally on them.
He described to the Mirror how they often resist holding hands in public and are left looking over their shoulders, something straight people never have to consider doing.
The Brit wanted to highlight the vicious and cruel attack so people knew that such abuse was ongoing in the country today.
A spokesperson for Dorset Police said: “Dorset Police received a report at 9.53pm on Monday 6 March 2023 of an assault in Exeter Crescent in Bournemouth.
“It is reported that a man said homophobic abuse to two men, before pushing one of them to the floor. He sustained an injury to his eye.
“Officers attended and carried out enquiries at the scene. Dorset Police does not tolerate hate crime and an investigation is underway to identify the person responsible. No arrests have been made at this time.”
