October 7, 2009:

In 11 years, this world has progressed in so many positive ways. Sadly, it doesn't seem as if we have advanced much in our attitude towards bisexual, gay, lesbian or transgendered people. The fact that anyone can be beaten or murdered for a part of them that they can't change is so foreign to me.

Last year alone, I have documented 143 incidents (at this time) worldwide. 41 people died as a result of those incidents. More than 100 other people were physically attacked in some way. 3 people committed suicide.

How do we get the message through to the people who are able to commit these crimes? One day, there might be something about them that someone doesn't like and the same thing could potentially happen to them.

How do we let these people know that it takes so much more energy to be filled with such hate than it does to be more positive? How do we help these people use their lives for more productive things and get rid of the apparent boredom that helps cause these crimes? How do we let them know that it's okay for people to have differences?

Maybe every one of us could be part of the solution... Maybe there's something that every one of us could do to help one person, allow them to help someone else, and create a ripple effect... Maybe I'm being too hopeful... I don't think so. I do believe that we can all have a positive effect on someone else who we come in contact with. It's not out of the realm of possibility that we can be positive influences on people around us.

This is a place where I would like to ensure that all victims of anti-gay hate crimes and hate incidents are known, and remembered.

John Wear... Paul Broussard... Allen Schindler... Rebecca Dowski... Richard Whitesell...
Do those names mean anything to you?
Gary Rocus... Judith Hart Fournier... Steven Wilson... John Cavness... Alain Brosseau...
What about those?
They are just 10 of the many people who were victims of hate crimes based on actual, or perceived, sexual orientation.

Most, if not all, of the people whose names you will find on this site had hate-filled words thrown their way.
Others may have been on the receiving end of a punch or two.
Some were stabbed, hit with baseball bats or chains, kicked or shot.
Some perpetrators got more creative than that when acting out on their anger and hatred.
A good number of the victims died.
Some victims survived but were paralyzed, or needed extensive surgeries.
One thing that all of these incidents have in common is the seemingly endless amount of anger and hatred that their attacker(s) had inside of them.

This website is the end result of a totally different project that started a while back. It's finally at a point where it can be put out in cyberspace.
I wanted to have this completed and 100% ready to mark the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's attack.
I don't quite have that "final" version done. Sadly, there have always been people who dislike, despise, loathe or outright hate gays, lesbians,
bisexuals or transgendered people enough to do harm to us, which has kept me very busy adding names to this list. And they keep showing up,
as you will see on the next page. So keep in mind that old cases which haven't been entered in yet will be added, and new incidents will be added
to this site after they've happened. I would like to promise that no new incidents will ever happen, but sadly, that is a promise I couldn't keep.