Men holding hands in the Street

[girlfriend44]

Saw two men walking along hand in hand earlier and I admired their bravery and thought hope nobody starts on them.
Have seen women before but not men?
Do you think they were brave. Would you be scared for them if they were your sons?
Brave men. Perhaps it's something we will see more of in the future?

Yeah, if you’re claiming there’s no homophobia in
Hackney, you can go whistle. I genuinely don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. Homophobia exists. Pretending otherwise does no favours to anyone. I have absolutely no idea what you’re trying to do here unless it’s to
undermine people in ss relationships.

As you’ve just called me ‘a straight person’, clearly listening (or reading) isn’t something that interests you.
No they didn't, they said if you're in an opposite sex relationship then you're not going to get the same prejudices as if you were in a straight one, are you.

it's quite normal in the middle east and large parts of asia to see men holding hands, or linked arms, etc.

You claim that where you live is statistically safer for queer people than Hackney, but you have no stats on that for either where you live or Hackney. I see.

It’s bi erasure to ignore the decade I lived here when I was with a woman and still felt exactly the same. Safe. Nobody was beating me up then, either. But, ignore that, as it doesn’t fit your (increasingly incoherent) narrative.

Does your bizarre rationale work for everything, then? I’m also Black. Racist crime exists everywhere. It’s considerably less prevalent in certain places. I feel safe where I live, it’s one of the reasons I choose to live here. Am I ‘right on’ because I’m not terrified walking down the street? Am I refusing to be an ‘ally’ (to whom? Myself?) when I say that I and all the Black people I know round here are fairly certain they were not going to get beaten to death by racists? Because Black people have definitely been beaten to death by racists. It’s a thing that happens. And, in your world where logic and stats don’t matter, this apparently means I’m meant to live a life of terror and I’m brave for walking down the street. Anything else is ignoring the fact that racist attacks have happened!

You are ridiculous. I am just going to ignore you, now as you’re genuinely making me feel sick.

I never said homophobia didn’t exist in Hackney.
I said that two men holding hands wouldn’t be a remarkable sight in Hackney (directly answering the OP’s question). You think that is ‘undermining same sex relationships’, but you referring to me as ‘a straight person’ is fine? That’s supportive of the queer community, is it? Such grotesque hypocrisy. You ‘go whistle’.

Nope. They said, verbatim: Holding hands is brave, whether you see that or not as a straight person. To me, a person who is not straight. And they haven’t disagreed that they called me straight.

No, actually. My point is that I don’t have it hard at all. I have experienced no horrors whatsoever. Your reading comprehension, much like your ability to create a coherent argument, is not great.

You started this exchange, not me. The irony of you accusing anyone else of making this thread (that you’ve been all over since long before I turned up) about themselves is delicious. And now I really am going to stop rising to this nonsense and leave you to it.

Lesbian here, and yes of course it’s brave, being gay is still illegal in most countries and being assaulted for being gay is still fairly common.

And whilst holding hands for two women is more common I still have to be very aware of where I am at and who is nearby if I am going to indulge in any kind of PDA with another woman, as the threat is still very real so yes if I was a gay man I would probably fear even more as people tend to have an even more adverse reaction to gay men vs women.

There's a pattern of posts developing on this thread.

Poster shows up, doesn't read thread. Announces how homophobic the OP is, witters about it being 1982, enlightens the thread as to how cool and inclusive their bit of the world is, and how no eyelids are batted, etc.

They then get told why their attitude is absolutely "I don't see colour" and their so-cool-I've-never-see it bleating misses the point entirely.

Next, the same posters start flapping and lashing out and chucking their words/insults around about how misunderstood they are and how they DO IN FACT tick every box going that enables their narrow POV, so we can all fuck off because they've been there, man. Well they haven't, but they know someone who has.

Then another poster shows up who tells the OP to get back to 1970, when that POV was last aired...etc.

Loopity loop.

Yup.

You always seem inordinately worried about men in your threads OP.

In an earlier thread today your response to a post about men being responsible for 97% of violent crime was ‘women are violent too’.

Never seen two men holding hands in public but have seen many woman.

I'm near Birmingham and quite common to see this. Don't think anything of it. I suppose if you are in some tiny village at the back of beyond it might be more noticed.

funny how things that are considered normal aspect of bromance and girls friendship in my culture are considered gay in western culture.

I’ve lived in Hackney since I was 17, I’m in my 30’s now.

I’ve had verbal abuse, rocks, bottles, food and glasses (drinks ones) thrown at me, I’ve been spat on, I’ve been beaten up multiple times. I can’t get a taxi to/from certain places safely, so I have to make sure I get one from elsewhere thats in walking distance. Parents quit rugby tots when I took over because they didn’t want their children around someone like me. My son gets called gay boy at school, he’s 7.

In the Uk holding hands among adults is usually something for couples.

On a slightly different subject, linking arms seems to be disappearing. Look at any WWII photos of women together and they would have their arms linked. You hardly ever see that now.

When I was in Spain in the 90s, a lot of the young girls went around holding hands. My Spanish teacher was at pains to explain that there was nothing 'bad' about it. Bad was her choice of words, not mine, she meant to say that they were just friends. When I've been to Spain since then I haven't see this so I'm presuming it was a passing fad.

I think how you react to this may depend on where you live.

I have two friends are are lesbian and married to each other but still wouldn't walk through our town holding hands. They love going to Manchester or any other nearby big city because they don't have the same fears there. They've considered moving there lots of times. If I didn't know them I wouldn't t have thought this would be a problem where we live but I love it when I see younger gay couples being more openly out because it gives me hope that things are changing.

Have you actually bothered heading the posts from gay people on this thread, who agree with OP?

Pretty much standard MN unfortunately @CareeringLi It does get very tiresome when posters keep appearing, not having read any of the conversation, and still adding "it's normal", "it's not 1950 any more", and "maybe in a tiny village it would be unusual but I see it all the time in my little cosmopolitan, trendy, woke bubble". So many posters just can't get their head around the fact that things are different in other places, and not just in tiny rural hamlets either 🙄[bangs head against brick wall]

So sorry if this sounds patronising but this post is really refreshing to hear. I think a lot of people are trying so hard to be ‘woke’ and have a ‘cool’ attitude that they don’t want to admit that it does still happen, for fear that they themselves will be called homophobes.

I agree @ClottedCreamAndStrawberries there’s a lot of fear of saying the wrong thing. There is also homophobia.

It shouldn't be a matter for bravery but there is no question it carries a risk as there are still violent homophobes around. And they don't conveniently confine themselves to particular areas of the country either - there have been recent attacks in London, Reading and even Brighton. It is naive to imagine it's entirely safe now that the older generation has thankfully (largely) stopped tutting.

Still plenty of homophobes out there, unfortunately. My trans friend lives in France and regularly gets abuse. Someone on a moped tried to run her over the other day. it's sickening.