let’s label this one “NOT surprising”:

One in five lesbian and gay people have experienced a homophobic hate crime or incident in the last three years.

One in eight have been a victim in the last year.

Three in four of those experiencing hate crimes or incidents did not report them to the police.

Only six per cent reported them to third parties.

Seven in ten did not report hate crimes or incidents to anyone.

One in six experiencing homophobic hate incidents in the last three years experienced a physical assault.

Eight per cent of all black and minority ethnic lesbian and gay people have experienced a physical assault as a homophobic hate incident, compared to four per cent of all lesbian and gay people.

One in six lesbian and gay people have been insulted and harassed in the last three years because they are gay.

One in eight lesbian and gay people experiencing homophobic hate incidents have experienced unwanted sexual contact as part of the incident.

Overall, three in five lesbian and gay people have been a victim of any crime or incident in the last three years.

I think we all know that POC are subject to a higher rate of violence and harassment than the population as a whole; for every minority status added, that figure rockets higher and higher. how many trans people of color have been shunned, beaten, raped, killed? how many disabled lesbians? how many poor gay men? how many sex workers of any orientation?

the less a person conforms to the default normality, the less human they become, and thus the more subject to brutality, in an attempt by society to assert dominion.

I had an english teacher explain to me once that in film, in novels, in plays, and other methods of storytelling, the author only gets one “gimme,” one unexplainable phenomenon. the rest of the piece needs to be internally coherent and consistent. any more logical inconsistencies and the audience loses immersion, they lose that sense of believability, because they are being reminded again that this place they are visiting is not real and could never be real.

and honestly, I think that society can work that way too. a person can have one “gimme” and still succeed in the public’s eye. a person can be black, but they have to be higher class, they have to be heteronormative, they have to be fully abled, they have to be conventionally attractive. only then are they accepted as an honorary “full person.” similarly, a person can be gay, but they must be white, upper class, fully abled, conventionally attractive, and conforming to a tame boundary of gender, never pushing their confines too hard, to be accepted as honorarily “real.”

the more you, as a person, fail to live up to that standard, the more you remind everyone else that you are not that standard. people can only ignore so much before they fail to think of you as human at all.

and once you reach that point, you’re one stroke of minor misfortune away from dead.