Lindsay & friend
HATE CRIMES: Lindsay C. Harmon of Buffalo, New York, was stabbed in her right eye after she and two friends were attacked by two gay-bashing women outside a downtown club following a New Year’s Eve celebration.
29-year-old Harmon and her two friends were leaving the nightclub around 2 a.m. to head home when two women, accompanied by four men, began shouting gay slurs at them. Harmon’s girlfriend, Nichole Bauer and her friend Dina Coniglio had already gotten into their car when the women began shouting. Bauer got out of the car and Dina told the girls to ‘shut their mouths.’ At that point Bauer was punched in the face and fell to the ground.
At this point, Harmon tried breaking up the argument:
I said, “Let’s go home. Let’s get out of here.’ I was walking away, and she [the attacker] came behind me, and I got nailed. I thought I’d been punched, and I fell. I just sat there waiting for her to kick me or something,” Harmon said.
Dina & Nichole attempted to go after the woman but were restrained by a man who told him that the attacker had a knife. Lindsay ‘kept saying, “Dina, I can’t see out of my eye.” She has now undergone three hours of surgery and does not have vision in her eye. They’re unsure if she will ever regain vision and currently has seven stitches in her right eyelid and eye, alone with several stitches in her right cheek and left arm.
Harmon said this was the first time she has ever been attacked because of her sexual orientation.
“I just remember saying, “What did you say?’ ” Harmon recalled of the moment the attackers began shouting the slurs. “It’s just crazy to me. I’d never think anyone would say that in the main gay area of Buffalo. I’ve been going to Roxy’s for like 10 years.”
Nichole has started a facebook group for Lindsay Harmon (Please Help Lindsay Harmon and Stop Hate Crimes!) to help them find the attackers. JOIN IT!
“I hope the police catch the woman who stabbed me. I want to sit in front of her and ask her how and why you do this,” Harmon said. “I don’t understand it. I really don’t know why anyone at all would attack someone. I wonder how somebody brings themselves to attack another person.”
AIRBRUSHING: Miss Universe 2004 and model Jennifer Hawkins agreed to pose nude and un-airbrushed on the cover of February’s Australian Marie Claire, but some are slamming the magazine’s anti-Photoshopping efforts, claiming Hawkins does not represent real women. That’s silly. It’s still a magazine, we just want this airbrushing madness to end! It’s hard enough to compare ourselves to actresses and models, but we understand they sell magazines so can we just compare ourselves to actual actresses and models instead of shiny plastic faces and missing limbs and stomachs that vaguely resemble humans? BRAVO AUSTRALIA YOU WIN. (@huffpo)
Editor Jackie Frank told The Australian that the images were inspired by a survey of 5500 readers, which showed that only 12 percent of women were truly happy with their bodies. Marie Claire put Hawkins on the cover to make a positive statement about body image and the photographs of Hawkins will be auctioned later this month, with the proceeds donated to the Butterfly Foundation, an eating disorders support group.
HOME DECOR: Is Apartment Therapy racist? “I wanted to take a comprehensive look at how this important site has treated race and class, pointing out a history of problematic posts.” It’s a really eye-opening piece, and one of the AT editors responds to OGH in the comments. (@onegrandhome)
SEX: Yes, Virginia, There is a G-Spot. There’s more to say about those mystery G-spots so let’s keep talking. Unless you’re Betty Dobson, because she’s bored with it. Violet Blue has some fun ideas about this study: “It would be like rounding up 2,000 straight guys and asking them if they thought they had a prostate. Most would say no, because admitting to knowing he had one means that he’s saying he’s played with his ass for pleasure. Few women are going to outright state that they’ve explicitly played with themselves sexually to find a controversial, different way to orgasm.” (@thedailybeast)
SONIA: Towards A More Perfect Nation: Sotomayor Navigates A Race, Gender, And Class Minefield In Pursuit Of Justice. (@jezebel)
DENIM: Gap has expanded their boyfriend jean line from lesbians women to babies. When will they realize that the only people who wear “boyfriend” clothes are people who don’t have boyfriends? (@jezebel)
holy crap, in the EYE. i read the whole rest of the piece with my hand over my eye. i really hope that she’s able to regain vision. god, so terrible. catch that piece of shit!
I wonder if the two women who attacked Harmon had anything to do with the attack on a gay man in a parking lot in Buffalo on NYE?
I hope they find the people responsible for the attack and that Harmon is able to recover her vision. What a shitty way to start the New Year.
I read a write-up on both that says they seem to be unrelated incidents, but who knows…
The fact that it was women who committed both of these crimes is what’s so shocking to me. Like obviously I believe in an abstract way that women are just as capable of violence as men and women have always been responsible for some small percentage of violent hate crimes… but four different women committing two different gay bashings within twelve hours of each other? In the same town? That’s kind of a new thing, isn’t it? I hope this doesn’t portend some new trend.
This whole body image thing is getting annoying. IF SHE IS UNAIRBRUSHED SHE IS REPRESENTING A REAL WOMAN! geez. It is about ALL sizes, not just the size 1 or the 20w. Everyone. And regardless of what you see in models, actresses, or singers. Either love your self or fix yourself, stop complaining. Its just that simple.
what she said. im skinny. im not unhealthy. i get spots. thats me
Oh my god. What kind of a monster would even do something like that?
I hope Harmon regains the sight in her eye but mostly I hope they catch the evil person who did this and lock her away for years. What a loathsome person, I don’t even know what to say, it’s so shocking. In the EYE. JFC that’s horrific.
wow just wow. i’ve been to that bar. wow.
Oh wow.
You’re missing some context on the Jennifer Hawkins story — part of why people are so outraged is that other Aussie women’s magazines, including Australian Women’s Weekly and madison, are printing photos of nude, un-airbrushed women who, well, aren’t Jennifer Hawkins. And, if you’ll have a look at the link on my name up there, I think Bianca Dye looks a billion times hotter than Ms. Hawkins anyway. (And keep in mind this is coming from a girl who actually does wear a size 0 in America…)
This. Australian media is still highly fatphobic (and to some degree racist as well). To have the representative of “real women” be the same image they’ve been perpetuating for eons, someone who works in an industry where body image is highly controlled, shows that such magazines aren’t really willing to go beyond their ideas of “real woman”.
This story is one of the many reasons I am glad I wear glasses. I really hope she regains sight in her eye.
Imagine being able to walk home one day without being attacked for what you look like or who you’re with. I seriously don’t understand violence.
this.
Shocked to read about the stabbing. It’s sometimes hard to believe that even if you live in a bubble there are still people out there like this. I don’t know what caught me off guard more the fact a woman committed the act or that it happened in Buffalo.
This girl my sister knew was killed and thrown in a lake by our house and it was a possible hate crime. Its one thing to be against something and even verbalize it but to cause physical harm and death to others is so sad and horrible.
This is the thing, right here than INFURIATES me the most about the vocal religious opposition to homosexuality.
Let’s assume first that the attackers are atheists. They’ve never set foot in a church or other religious site and hate gays for some other reason.
They are still finding support for their hatred somewhere in society over the years- from the groups like NOM that run ads about the gays coming to teach your kids their evil ways. From every anti-gay comment made amongst friends, colleagues, classmates. From media showing homosexuality as weird or unnatural. They’ve learned from somewhere to be so afraid of homosexuality that they turn to violence.
So even if it wasn’t a direct religious education that taught them to hate, let’s consider for a moment- 76% of adults responding to the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008 identified as Christian. Imagine if all of those Americans were not even supportive of, but tolerant of homosexuality?
Imagine if, instead of retelling Sodom and Gomorrah as God’s great vengeance on the gays, they looked instead to Matthew and asked “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” or to Luke to learn “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned, forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”
Even if they believe that homosexuality is a sin and teach as such, what a change we would have if it were simply looked at on par with any other sin. Where would the fear come from then, if we are all said to be sinners?
“Yeah, Bob’s gay. But I said was coveting my neighbor’s things yesterday and was mean to a co-worker. I should go apologize…”
This is what angers me SO MUCH. Even if you would never take to violence yourself, if you are preaching so loudly against homosexuality you are feeding into the belief that it is some sort of scary evil that must be stopped which encourages people like these attackers to take it further to violence.
Even if you believe that judgment day will send us all to hell, if you aren’t preaching first that we should each strive to let our every action express love and leave judgment to God, you are allowing your faith to feed into actions that are unbelievably un-Godly.
To say nothing of the many non-Christians who are supportive or at least tolerant, imagine if the 76% of Americans who identify as Christian refused to repeat gay jokes, call people fags, criticize homosexuals as any more sinful than themselves. Of course, many Christians are not only tolerant but supportive of homosexuality, but imagine for a minute all 76% of adults.
When are we going to learn that our words and actions flow together and influence those around us and beyond? When are we going to learn to value humanity above our labels?
I hope they find her attackers and I hope for both their sake the woman comes to understand the unfathomable wrong she has done.
This.
I consider myself religious, but when people ask me why I hang out with gays and lesbians if I’m so ‘religious’, I just tell them that I couldn’t under any circumstances cast the first stone. This story shocks me even more knowing it happened in America- its called ‘land of the free’ for a reason. As long as they are both consenting adults and no one gets injured, what does it matter to me what they do with their lives? I’m not going to cut out my best friend just because she has a girlfriend. What day and age do we live in, anymore?
Not to mention all the GLBT Christians out there. Hell, one of the most devout Christians I know is gay. (And he was kicked out of the CCF at our college and given pamphlets for Exodus for his trouble… XP)
Good point! My BFF from high school was complaining not long back that all his closest LGBT friends were really religious (he’s not).
As angry as I get thinking about those who aren’t tolerant, there is a lot of reason for hope. A lot of folks are working from within their faith to change beliefs. One of my high school friends who went on to a Christian university and then seminary (though he recently dropped out to do TFA) went from a total homophobe in high school to founding a gay-straight alliance at his uni. Another high school friend has faced a strong backlash from his very evangelical church (in which he is a minister) because of his support for gay marriage rights. And two of my closest friends are spending the next 5 years training to be missionaries and I can’t think of anyone who has treated my sexuality as more of a non-issue.
I do both hope and believe that one day they will be the standards and not the exceptions for all faiths. I just hate that in the meantime something that seems to have the ability to do so many people so much good is so often used for just the opposite.
Shit. Poor woman :(
Not much of a gf. She just lets some straight cow stab her gf and doesn’t go after, said straight cow, to kick her ass because some “man” told her not to. Classic.
Does she phone HIM to ask HIM if she should shit, too??