Gay Couple Harassed and Threatened on Subway Don’t Feel Safe in NYC Anymore
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A gay Reddit user posted on Tuesday that he and his boyfriend had been harassed and threatened by another passenger wielding a hammer and hurling homophobic slurs and said the couple no longer feel safe on New York City’s subways.
My boyfriend and I were harassed today and threatened with a hammer. We really don’t feel safe anymore in the subway.
Today me and my boyfriend were on the A train going uptown between 14th St. and 34th St. We weren’t even doing anything, just standing next to each other. Some guy across the train started yelling and at first we didn’t even notice it because you learn to just ignore people yelling on the subway. But eventually my boyfriend gave me the heads up that he was yelling at us. He was screaming that we were faggots and how much he hates faggots and to stop looking at him. We weren’t looking at him.
We decided to just ignore it to try not to make it any worse but eventually he came over to us and especially to my boyfriend and started yelling at us right in our faces that he hates faggots and he wanted to kill us. He was clearly unhinged but not much we could do since we were between stations.
He walked back to the other side of the car and we just ignored him but suddenly my boyfriend started saying “baby, baby, baby” and I looked and he had rushed over and had a hammer probably an inch from my boyfriend’s head. Luckily we had arrived at 34th St. at just that moment and the doors had opened. The man took a step backwards and I quickly stepped out of the car and yanked my boyfriend out by the arm. Luckily the doors closed behind us and the guy was trapped in the train.
I know it’s New York and people including myself try their best to ignore and not get involved. It is a good form of self preservation. However in the past I’ve noticed that at the point where the situation progresses to the point where someone is genuinely in danger of being harmed that people will step up and help. No one did anything today. After the first time he accosted us some big guy did stand up and kind of position himself between the guy and us but the guy just went around him and continued to harass us.
I don’t know. I’ve ridden the subway multiple times daily for a long time and I’m pretty unphased by most things. We’ve been harassed about 6 times in the city recently however most of the time people will just yell things and walk away. I usually don’t let it bother me. But this time feels way different. We felt in serious danger. It would’ve only taken one swing of his hammer for this psychopath to seriously injure or kill my boyfriend or me and I have no doubt if not for the timing he would have continued attacking and we would have had to physically defend ourselves.
When I’m alone no one really bothers me because I guess it’s not “obvious” that I’m gay. But it seems to be happening more frequently when we are together. I am also getting extremely worried for my boyfriend when he is alone. For lack of a better word he presents more obviously gay. He is also Asian and from his experiences it seems people over the past few years are even more likely to target him because of that.
Not sure where else I’m really going with this. I really just don’t feel safe on the subway anymore as a gay man.
Photo by Ronny Rondon on Unsplash
