Queer goings on in the streets

Assault victim: "It was a hate crime"

CRAIG SIMCOX/ The Dominion Post

OUTRAGE STEPS OUT: Marchers protest against harassment of gays in Wellington.

ROSS GIBLIN/Dominion Post

JUST NOT ON: Brendan Goudswaard, 26, a retail assistant and youth worker, believes he was beaten up in an assault a few months ago because he is gay.

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Hundreds of people joined a "Queer the Night" march through central Wellington last night to protest against the physical and verbal harassment of gays.

The protest organisers included activist Kassie Hartendorp and drag queen and activist Brendan Goudswaard, 26, who was attacked in Vivian St at the end of February.

A group of three men rammed his head into a wall as he tried to pass them on the footpath while walking home from work about 2am. He said details of the attack were fuzzy but one of the men asked him how his night was going before bashing him.

"I was taken to hospital by an ambulance," he said. "I had a black eye, a swollen face and I now have a scar on my forehead.

"I had to take a week off work but I know quite a few gays who have been beaten up or harassed. It's just what happens.

"I am quite openly gay when I am in public and sometimes I go out with the queens and we dress up in heels. I have been around long enough to know that it was a hate crime."

Mr Goudswaard was at the same high school as Jeff Whittington, a teenager murdered by two anti-gay men in 1999, and said the murder left him shocked and determined to speak out. He is now a youth worker with the School's Out programme, a support group for young people identifying as gay or lesbian, and their friends.

The march from Waitangi Park to Cuba St also targeted the fear of bullying in school, discrimination that transgender and gay people faced at work and the fear of being shunned by friends and rejected by families.

A public meeting is to be held next week so supporters can contribute their opinions on how to tackle prejudice.

- © Fairfax NZ News