Being Reminded How Much Hate is Still Out There

          I just read this article about a young transgendered woman who was beaten into a seizure at a McDonald's in Baltimore, Maryland. The video below (which is also in the linked article above) is quite violent. The teenagers keep coming back, after walking away, and beating her more. Toward the end they are dragging her across the restaurant and, while kicking and hitting her, and almost get her out the door when she goes into a seizure.

        

















          The only one who did anything at all was the manager who just stood to the side and kept yelling "stop". The other employees just stood there to the side, and you can hear many of them laughing through half of the video. (The video itself was being shot by one of the employees).
          You know, I've been becoming more open about who I am as a bisexual man. I've been slowly coming out to family and friends. I'm not out to many people just yet, only maybe five or six people. I've had mostly positive experiences with everyone that I've come out to so far though, and the more open I am, the better I feel about myself. The world around me doesn't seem to be as hateful against be being bi as I originally felt it would be. Though, things like this constantly remind me how much hate there still is out there for people who are different from what mainstream society wants to accept. Things like this are a constant reminder to me of how important it is for not only me, but all LGBT people to be open about who we are, to constantly change the public perception, to get it into mainstream that none of us are that different. I want to live in a country where no one puts up with this kind of hate and violence because they don't see non-heterosexual, non-gender norm people, as any different than someone who likes a different flavor of ice cream than they do. I have no idea what the injury status of the girl who got beat up in this video is, but I can only hope that she will recover okay.