Thank you for this important story! And it's worth pointing out that things are getting worse in the United States, like in many parts of the world.

Random street violence against queer people, trans and gay, is skyrocketing in the United States according to several recent studies.

I was gay bashed back in the early 1990s when I was walking around Greenwich Village with my boyfriend. That was toward the tail end of an inexplicable (or at least never explained) surge of anti-gay street violence in New York City.

I mention that, because in many places in the United States violence levels are reaching those heights again.

And that's not to even speak of schools. Anti-trans and anti-gay bullying by students and school staff are also skyrocketing, probably owing in part to a surge of hateful religious rhetoric and political rhetoric inspired by religion.

I mean, Pope Francis himself referred to gay men with a despicable slur in Italian recently, twice. Essentially, he called us faggots.He received enormous pushback first time, but he called us faggots again anyway.

That made huge headlines, and it's barely the beginning of the kind of horrific hate speech that politicians and religious leaders routinely direct against us.

Was depraved pieces of homeophobic shit like Pope Francis and other Christian leaders treating us like the dirt on the bottom of their shoes, is it any wonder that Christian politicians, people on the street and children in schools are listening and emulating?

After I was gay bashed, I thought we were emerging from a period of hate and religious stupidity. I thought we were on a track to a decent, loving society.

I believed that until 2016.

Then all hell broke loose.

And I'm sick about it. I didn't think I would have to live through this again.