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One of the elderly women told me there had just been a shooting at a nearby church and people had died. Sensing something big, I approached a table and asked what had happened, maybe expecting something bad had happened elsewhere in the world. Around noon a number of guests at different tables became loud, some women among them beginning to cry. Working that shift for over a year, I had developed a good relationship with the regulars, often chatting with them about school and life and working to seat them with their preferred servers. On July 27th, 2008 I worked the church rush as a host at the Applebee’s on Kingston Pike. Many of the victims in this article are no longer with us and I intend, by telling their story, to honor their memory and raise awareness, love and compassion for all people of Knoxville. Today’s article tells the very real stories of hate crimes toward the LGBT community in East Tennessee and Knoxville. Sadly, this also happens in the United States, though less frequently and, thankfully, with less brutality in recent years. Transgender people around the world face extreme danger, with many hiding their identity in order to find work or a place to live. Gay men are commonly murdered and lynched in the streets by mobs after being baited into revealing their sexual identity to the wrong person. It is still common today in many developing nations for women suspected of being lesbian to be raped, sometimes by a large group of men in public, in an effort to “cure” her of the affliction. Not that long ago in this city, LGBT men and women were at risk of being attacked and seriously harmed or killed, and the muted community response was usually silence and indifference or defense of the attacker simply because the victim was homosexual. I have read wonderful and uplifting stories I will continue to share for you over the coming weeks, but as I have also discovered quite a few incidents of hate and discrimination that hit close to home for me as a Gay man living in this community. You cannot discuss the history of a person or place without all of the facts – good and bad. You can find part one here and part two here.
WHEN IS GAY PRIDE IN KNOXVILLE TN SERIES
*This is the third installment of a month-long series addressing different topics related to Pride Month, presented by guest writer Oren Yarbrough.