One of the lesbians who were attacked in the United Kingdom is now speaking out.
Police arrested five teenagers between ages 15 and 18 suspected of brutally attacking and robbing a lesbian couple while riding a double decker bus May 30.
“They started behaving like hooligans, demanding that we kiss so they could enjoy watching, calling us ‘lesbians’ and describing sexual positions,” Melania Geymonat, 28, wrote in English and Spanish on Facebook June 5 describing the incident.
Geymonat’s Facebook name was changed to Melania Ps.
The five young men even started “throwing us coins and becoming more enthusiastic about it,” she wrote.
The teens were released on bail June 8, reported Devidiscourse.
The women were attacked while they were out on a date. They were riding a double decker bus to the home of her American girlfriend, who was only identified in the media as Chris.
Geymonat, who is a Ryanair cabin crew member from Uruguay, doesn’t recall what instigated the attack, surmising that they might have kissed or something else.
Geymonat didn’t know how they ended up in a fight that left her apparently unconscious for an unknown amount of time. Both women were bleeding, she wrote.
She later found out that her nose was broken.
The attack outraged LGBT advocates around the world who saw a photo of the two women that Geymonat posted on Facebook, along with her description of what happened.
Global News reported that London Metropolitan Police Detective Superintendent Andy Cox called the attack “disgusting” in a statement from the police department.
“This was a disgusting attack on two women who appear to have been picked out and targeted by a group of youths,” he said.
Kseniya Kirichenko, senior officer for women and U.N. advocacy at the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, called out the blatant sexualization of the women during the attack in an interview with the Independent.
Kim Sanders, director of communications at Stonewall, noted attacks on queer women are a double whammy.
“For lesbian women there is always an added dimension of misogyny thrown in there. It’s an assault on you as an LGBT+ person and on you as a woman,” Sanders told the newspaper.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted, “Hate crimes against the LGBT+ community will not be tolerated in London.”
Originally published by the Bay Area Reporter.
Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at WhatsApp: 415-517-7239, or Skype: heather.cassell or oitwnews@gmail.com.
