It’s not only women who are afraid at night

WOMEN have come together to share stories and outrage about feeling unsafe on the streets at night, but they’re not alone in feeling nervous, writes Seb Starcevic.

THIS week, vigils were held across the country for 22-year-old Eurydice Dixon, whose body was found in a Melbourne park last week.

An aspiring comedian remembered by friends as an “amazing young woman”, Dixon was raped and killed while walking home from a gig shortly after texting her boyfriend that she was “almost home safe”.

Her death has tapped into a wellspring of frustration and solidarity among women, leading some to share a laundry list of the conscious and unconscious precautions they take to ensure their safety while going about their daily lives.

But it’s not only women and girls who are pressured to modify their behaviour to reduce their risk of being assaulted.

I say that from personal experience.

Whenever I’m out at night, I deepen my voice and hunch my shoulders, hamming up the macho factor. I’m painfully aware of my mannerisms, the same physical tics and shrugs that led kids in primary and high school to call me a fag.

Mourners pay their respects during a vigil held this week in memory of Eurydice Dixon in Melbourne. (Pic: Michael Dodge)

If I’m with a friend in a public space, I steer the conversation away from anything that a homophobe might overhear and take offence to. My heart automatically speeds up at the sight of a group of teenage boys heading in my direction or boarding the same train carriage as me.

According to a 2012 George Washington University survey, 90 per cent of gay and bisexual men have experienced some form of street harassment by the age of 24, with 71 per cent of respondents reporting that they constantly assess their surroundings for threats when navigating public spaces.

Almost 70 per cent said they avoid specific neighbourhoods or areas, 67 per cent said they try not to make eye contact with strangers, and 59 per cent said they cross the street or take a detour on their planned route ― all to avoid being harassed or assaulted.

These figures are supported by a 2013 study by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights that found three quarters of gay men won’t hold hands in public out of fear for their safety.

Robert*, 20, was walking with a male friend in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra late one Saturday night when he says they were harassed by a group of at least four men who called them “faggots” and “poofs” and told them they deserved to die.

When one of the men started forward aggressively, Robert grabbed his friend and ran. He tells RendezView he “thought he was going to get bashed” and believes he “could have been beaten to death” if the situation had escalated.

Gay men fear that even holding hands could make them targets for violence. (Pic: iStock)

In another incident on Chapel St, he recalls a man deliberately bumping into him and asking him if he wanted to fight after calling him a “faggot”. That time, he was once again with a male friend, and managed to get away safely.

In March, openly gay comedian Rhys Nicholson took to social media to write about his own close call after he was accosted on the way to a gig by four men on a Melbourne train.

“You can always spot a faggot”, one of the men said. “If there was no one here I’d bash you to death”. Nicholson got off the train and reported the incident, and while he wasn’t hurt, it wouldn’t be the first time verbal abuse escalated into an assault.

Earlier this year, Victoria Police appealed for witnesses to a homophobic attack outside a gay bar in Collingwood that started with homophobic taunts and left a man, known only as Brendan, with cracked ribs and a severely blackened eye.

Then in April, husbands Kurt Johnson and Adrian Kalaiziovski were assaulted getting out of their Uber in the Sydney suburb of Redfern by a man who repeatedly called them “faggots”.

And last September, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 19-year-old godson was viciously punched by a 48-year-old man after standing up for marriage equality.

It’s important to note the parallels between attacks on women and gay men because much of the homophobic abuse levelled at gay and bisexual men carries an implicit subtext of misogyny.

When the mere sight of a man displaying behaviour coded as feminine is enough to make another man violently uncomfortable, his hatred for gay people is at least as much about his hatred for women.

As James Finn writes in his piece for Medium: “What do most homophobic men have against gay men? What do they find most distasteful? That gay men (in their view) are like women … When a homophobic man taunts a gay man, he almost invariably does so by comparing him in unfavourable terms to a woman.”

If we’re to confront the foe that has claimed 30 women’s lives so far in 2018, we need to be able to identify it in all its forms.

*Name changed per request.

Seb Starcevic is a freelance writer.