Raleigh safer than D.C.?
by Matt | September 18th, 2008 |Yeah… a once Raleigh native told Washington, D.C.’s Metroweekly magazine that he felt safer in Raleigh, as well as in Boston:
At the same time, Mark Hayes, another local gay man, was finding himself similarly fed up. While Perry is a Washington native, Hayes came to the District about five years ago, having lived in Boston and Raleigh, N.C. His experiences here, he says, indicate a level of entrenched homophobia he’s not experienced elsewhere.
”D.C. is very different,” says Hayes, recalling that he and three friends were recently taunted with shouts of ”faggot” by a passing Lincoln Navigator with Maryland plates as they neared Nellie’s, a gay sports bar, walking along 12th Street NW. ”Even though North Carolina has a reputation for not being as gay friendly, the big gay bar in Raleigh is right downtown. I’m not terrified, but I don’t have the level of safety that I felt in Boston.”
Hayes says he believes D.C. has a ”major problem with homophobia. I think it starts in schools and goes on up.”
I really don’t know how this can be. You’d think, stereotypically, that a larger city — and, in general, a more progressive city — would be a safer place for LGBT folks to live and work. Hayes definitely disagrees. His statement in the latest issue of Metroweekly comes right on the heels of the death of a supposed gay-bashing victim killed near D.C. gay bar BeBar. The Washington Blade has more.
Matt, 22, is an LGBT journalist, activist and youth advocate currently living and working in Charlotte, N.C., where he serves as the Editor of Q-Notes, the Carolinas' LGBT news source. A native of Winston-Salem, N.C., Matt attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is still continuing to pursue his bachelors degree. He is the Owner & Editor of InterstateQ.com and has been active in LGBT advocacy work since the age of 14.
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