A man has been brutally attacked in an alleged hate crime in San Diego, leaving him hospitalised with a litany of injuries including to his spine, a broken nose, fractured eye socket.
Speaking about the attack, Gersson Saavedra said: “When we were leaving the event I fell behind my friends, Martin and Sunny. My friend said that these two guys asked me for a lighter. By the time they like turned around, I was getting, you know, punched. I was basically hitting the floor at that point.”
His friends that were present at the time said that the men were shouting homophobic slurs as they attacked him. Saavedra continued: “First thing I remember when I woke on the hospital bed is that one of the doctors asked me if I was gay. I was like, that’s such a weird question to ask, but I said of course. And he was like, ‘Okay, you were a victim of a hate crime.’”
These attacks have become more and more prevalent of late and it’s beginning to affect the confidence of the community. Saavedra went on to say: “You hear about these things like happening in the gay community, but you know, you can never kind of prepare or expect something like this to happen to you.”
Saavedra’s family have set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for his spiralling hospital bills. We need to stand together and speak out every time we see homophobia. They can beat us, but they will never BEAT us.