Comments

1
How can it be a hate crime when there is neither a crime nor hate involved?
2
This absolutely blows my mind. How can this happen is LESS THAN TWO BLOCKS from the police department in the busiest part of capitol hill. So far so good, Ed.
3
Wow vine street I guess you would have an inexplicably intimate knowledge of the circumstances to make such a statement. I'm sure they were just joshing around, until her face was all bloody and her head got smashed into the pavement. What a fun hate free game. You fucking douchenozzle.
4
@1 & @3, vine street is right, just because a member of a minority group is the victim of a crime doesn't mean it's a hate crime. A more accurate, but far less sensational, headline would be "3rd minority crime victim this week". According SPD's website, the REASON FOR THE ATTACK being based on the suspect's belief about the victims' race, color, sexual orientation, etc. Neither the victim and assailent in this case nor any witnesses have identified this as the cause. As far as you know these people were drunk roommates that let play fighting get out of hand while drunk.
5
#4, the waiter who stopped the fight and mentioned he believed the excessive violence was due to the victim being transgender is no longer a witness?
6
Oh look, bigots using semantics to excuse bigotry.
WHY hasn't the queer patrol been reformed? When I was at UW we never had problems getting people to patrol, that was 15 yrs ago though. Aren't today's young adults more tolerant than we were?
7
We should take the word of a passerby who jumped in as opposed to the 2 actual participants...ok.
8
#7, not only is that acceptable, it is rather common. You've got two people involved in an incident, and one observer. The observer often gives the most neutral statement because (newsflash) they weren't involved in the incident and therefore have no dog in the fight.
9
@8: Fucking THIS.
vine street, are you touched in the head?
10
passerby intervenes to stop fight, attacker recognizes the humanity of victim thanks to the intervention, stops assault despite compliance of the mob. sounds like a good outcome, short of not having the stupid fucking fight in the first place.

this could have been a bridge and tunnel douchenozzle, but it could have been one of her friends too.

we dunno so everyone calm down.
11
Y'all are breaking the first rule of fight club.
12
I have no idea what actually went down, and maybe the *ahem* reporting of it should wait until some credible facts come in, but something about the way the headline and the first sentence of the article are worded make it sound like a story the reporter doesn't necessarily believe. Rough way to start out.

13
I second what @10 said
14
Maybe we should just take the victim's word that it was not a hate crime, and the witness is just assuming he knows why they were fighting, filling in the blanks with his own motives.

Or do we only believe victims when their statements support narratives we want advanced?
15
When will Dan Savage and the other well off gays at The Stranger finally admit that their declaration of Seattle not needing a "gay ghetto" (like nearly every other "world-class city" has) was a bad idea?

You can pass every single law you can think of to protect the rights of LGBTQ people but that doesn't change the minds and hearts of the haters. That will take a generation or two before sexual minorities won't need an area that they can largely call their own. And yeah, 10-15 years ago when the hill was largely gay there were attacks but nothing to the scale we are seeing now.

Marriage is nice for the minority of us who want to get married but it doesn't do a lot of good if we are getting the shit beat out of us.
17
Has anyone actually talked to the victim, or is this all based off of a vague police report, one person's account and Facebook hysterics? How do we know the victim is transgender - a guess by the witness?
18
Cato dear, I had no idea that Dan Savage and the other "well off gays at The Stranger" were setting land use policies for the city and controlling the real estate market in Seattle. Thanks for enlightening us.

But seriously - how would you preserve the "gay ghetto"? Special subsidized rates just for LGBTQ folks? However would they prove their eligibility?
19
@15 A few years ago I might have disagreed with you and claimed, naively, that it would be possible for Seattle to be more of an inclusive city overall. Now, it looks like that isn't happening. Capitol Hill is now so large that its straight visitors don't feel the need to do much except get piss drunk and act like they own the fucking place, which they now do thanks to developers. It's more than a shame, it's more than a threat, it's an attack on Capitol Hill, drawn out day by day, week by week, person by person. What's the message to us? No queers allowed on Capitol Hill any more. Sorry, LGBT folks, thanks for making Capitol Hill what it is, but we're here and we're straight and we own it now, looks like it's time for you to get out and start again, fuck you for playing.

@18 There are ways to preserve the gay ghetto but you might not like them. Have gay bars take a harder stance against unwanted patrons. Speak out/demonstrate so that douchey straight people know they're not wanted. Sell to LGBT developers; choke Capitol Hill's straight population out with enough gay shit that a straight guy would feel nervous just thinking something hateful. At worst, teach LGBT people self-defense (not a bad idea, actually), or else arm them if their lives are being threatened. Or, the alternative is that you don't. You don't preserve the gayborhood at all. You just have gay people disperse and start up some new gayborhood somewhere else as the old one dies off. Rinse and repeat in another 10 or 15 years, what else is new?
20
Any description of the perp?
21
Time to take out the trash on Capitol Hill. Be careful out there. http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2015/0…
22
It's really fascinating to read the difference in the comments here versus the comments on this site when this same shit happens to women:
http://www.thestranger.com/columns/i-ano…

Where are "Seattle BCC" and "Orgasm" and the rest to tell you you're just being whiny victims who aren't fighting back hard enough and who expect others to help them? Obviously, all hate crimes are fucking awful, but reading the empathy and concern expressed here when we are consistently told we are merely acting like victims by the same group of people is such infuriating bullshit, especially when crimes against women aren't considered hate crimes and we don't get the same legal considerations any other targeted group receives.
23
Enatai, when I first moved here the gay neighborhood was downtown/Pioneer Square. It wasn't until the 80's that Capitol Hill started getting really "gay" (although lots of gay people lived on the hill). Pike/Pine was pretty much deserted after 5 until the early 90's. There were a few bars and bathouses, but really not much going on. I want to say Neighbours was the first really big gay place, but it could have been Hombres or the Brass Door/Rail/Connection/whatever (it had a few names). Back in those days, I mostly hung at a place called Squid Row or The Comet, which were both straight-ish.

And unfortunately, LGBT developers are under the same pressures and motivations as any other developers - mostly they want to build, sell, and get on to their next project, so selling exclusively to them - which sounds sketchy and possibly illegal - won't help much.

LGBT bar owners are in the same boat. Rent is skyrocketing for them also. As the neighborhood changes, so does their patrons. They can't afford to be too exclusive.

The thing is I really can't think of a place in this region that has the low rents and density that allows a creative/gay vibe to prosper. Even Portland has lost its gayborhood, and Tacoma never really had one. Maybe the far suburbs, but they tend to be both isolated and a bit methy. Tuwilla? Burien? SeaTac? Shoreline? Factoria? All too settled and probably too expensive by now. Even Bremerton has cleaned up its act recently.

As far as the new residents go, it would be interesting to see some real data on them. They can't all be tech bros and woo girls. I think that crowd mostly contributes to the annoyance factor. A lot of the real violence we've seen recently seems to be from sources that are unlikely to be holding down jobs at Amazon or MS, which means they're not paying 3k a month for a one bedroom. So where are they coming from?
24
This IS a failure of the cops on Cap Hill!!!
We must require several sets of cops walking the beat. At this point, undercover cops looking like potential victims. FUCKING ANYTHING !!!!
This is another failure of the city to protect this community.

Isn't the mayor gay ??? Shouldn't this shit matter to him in some way ?!?
25
I have a transgender adult child that lives in that area, and it worries me a lot. I think the people need to take back the neighborhood...block watches...etc. We cannot let cruelty and hatred win.
26
#11 is fucking win.

Please wait...

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