Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Homophobia in the neighbourhood
John Toner of the Indy reports on the high levels of abuse that one couple receive on a daily basis:
A gay couple have told of their constant struggle with homophobia in Haringey.
Teacher Siobhan Wesley and her partner, charity worker Patricia Macleod, say they are subjected to threatening sexual and homophobic abuse in public on an almost daily basis.
The pair live separately in the Green Lanes area of Haringey but spend a significant amount of time together as a couple in public.
This has exposed them to an escalating level of threatening sexual behaviour from people, predominantly men, and violent threats and abuse purely because they appear together in public as a gay couple.
Ms Wesley, 29, said: “All the time this happens, we’re just walking along the street and we get people yelling sexual insults at us, men shouting what they’d like us to do to them and people just screaming ‘lezzers’ at us.”
Recently the couple were saying goodbye at the end of Siobhan’s street when a man exposed himself to them and began to sexually insult them for no apparent reason.
I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that it is upsetting to read of this homophobic behaviour in the neighbourhood.
What should be done, as Ms Wesley suggests, to make local people aware that "queer people exist in this area, that it’s completely normal and that the comments they make are offensive and against the law."
UPDATED Sat 11th April
From GayHarrin website
Report it!
The local police station for Harringay can be reached on:
If you have witnessed or experienced harassment, report it by calling the Anti-Social Behaviour Reporting Line:
- Name
- Address
- Email address /telephone no.
- Brief description of people involved, location and what was done or said.
Tags for Forum Posts: homophobia
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Lauren on
-
2 incidents last night as I walked on Green Lanes
1. A middle aged man outside Rakkas who leaned over to his mate and said "Biiiiiiiig Arse" as I walked past
2. A younger guy outside Messy Cut who told me to "Smile Princess"
-
Permalink Reply by Dermot on
-
Sorry everyone if this has already been mentioned (I haven't worked my way through the whole thread!) but in terms of action, there is also an online initiative called Hollaback describing itself as a global network to end street harassment.
Well worth a look for picking up and exchanging tips and techniques for challenging this stuff as well as logging and mapping incidents.
-
Permalink Reply by Sarah on
-
Last night I was out with my running group just across the border in Islington (GoodGym Haringey is coming soon!). Inevitably we were heckled. A couple of the guys in our predominantly female group got talking about how they had never experienced heckling/street harassment until they started running with women. It was an interesting conversation!
-
-
Found this from a few years ago:
"Officers say harassment is rife in Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, with men gathering outside cafes and taunting and hassling women on their way home from work".
http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/crime-court/police_pledge_to...
-
Permalink Reply by pamish on
-
It used to be horrible, the stretch of road from the park past the college and library. In 2008 there was a massive raid on all the cafes and HMOs in the area which recovered hundreds of stolen laptops, wallets, class A drugs and a whole bunch of other dodgy stuff. Google "blackstock road raid" for a selection of reports - though the DMail upped the number of police from 600 to 1000. Then a top-up raid the following year. The creepy men seem to have crept back, as your above link is from 2011. Not been there lately since I stopped teaching, any women care to update us?
Note in particular this blog post and this update in the comments: "Best news EVAH is that they have got dispersal orders served outside all the caffs and shops where the scumbag gangs of nasty youths used to loiter, harassing passers-by. They can only stand outside on their own now. If they get into a group, they will be moved on and if they don't move on, or return within 24 hours they will be nicked." OK not wishing a 600-cop raid on Green Lanes, and this was clearly based on serious detective work on hardcore crime, but would a few dispersal orders be useful? eg outside bookies. We have them in Seven Sisters by Wickes etc and though there are still (mostly benign) blokes hanging about, we no longer get groups in their 100s.
I wonder how many of these men are here alone? I suspect a lot - so they have nothing to do but work and hang about, with no restraint (or support) from family.
-
-
Today's dose of local misogyny brought to you by the UCKG at Finsbury Park
- Attachments:
-
-
image.jpg, 1.6 MB
-
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
