By Sonya Winterberg
This story deals with a violent assault. Wayves has created an accompanying article about what you can do if you see someone being assaulted and a few relevant resources; the link to that is at the bottom of the article.
It made headlines across the global LGBTIQ* media: On the eve of Saturday June 23, Emma MacLean and her girlfriend Tori were out celebrating MacLean’s birthday in downtown Halifax. After they had left a bar and walked down Argyle Street, the women noticed that a group of men started hitting on Emma. Tori was not having it and went to confront the group of about ten men. They then realized the two women were in fact a couple. What started as sexually demeaning comments turned quickly into homophobic slurs, including telling Tori “you wish you had a dick.” It was after the women dared to object to the men’s behavior that things turned violent.
Photographs: All the photos here are from Emma MacLean's Facebook page and are the same as have been widely circulated in the press and on social media.
“A group of men walking in the other direction made a comment to me. My girlfriend, Tori, said ‘hey that’s my girlfriend,’” MacLean told CTVNews. “They continued walking and Tori followed them to basically say: ‘That is not OK’.”
Video by a bystander obtained by CTV showed the young men kicking one of the women while she lay on the ground. MacLean said that the group pushed Tori down to the concrete and began attacking her, which she attempted to stop before they beat her as well.
Halifax Regional Police (HRP) answered media requests for interviews and statements with little more than what had already been circulated on social media. Spokesperson Cst. Anne Giffin said: “An assault occurred at approximately 1:50 a.m. on June 23 in the area of the 1600 block of Argyle Street in Halifax. Two people were approached by another group, who were not known to them, and assaulted. The incident remains under investigation.” It took until July 4 for police to release an official statement on their website and on social media, a statement that failed to mention that indeed a lesbian couple had been attacked by a group of men. As is customary, the police didn’t release the ethnic background of the attackers.
It was unclear who called police that evening or whether one of the patrolling units in the downtown area on weekend nights happened to be in the vicinity. MacLean told the Coast that she was “shocked at how little the police actually did. They didn’t really do anything. They didn’t take pictures of us and our injuries,” said MacLean. “Apparently they aren’t allowed to take pictures on their cell phones anymore; they have to call someone else to come take them, but they didn’t do that.”
While a couple of bystanders had seen what had happened, nobody seemed to step in to help the couple. On the video that was circulated on social media, one can hear a female voice asking “now what are we doing?.”
Most of the men involved left the scene even though witnesses pointed out that some of the attackers were wandering off. Only one gave police his details and accused the two women of being the ones who had attacked them. Emma and Tori were given a business card by police and told to call them in the morning if they wanted to file a report. Filing that report, it turned out, was harder than anticipated. The officer in charge was off for a few days and since the women were only in town for the weekend, they decided to give their statements to another police officer. By that time, on Sunday, no arrests had been made. Instead the officer told them “that these ‘bar fights’ are hard to really investigate.”
“They said the reason we sent you home and didn't get your statement on the scene and didn’t make any arrests or anything is because there are just so many bar fights,” said MacLean of her conversation with the officer. “The whole time I was just like, well, this wasn’t a bar fight. We were two women and this was a whole group of men. And we weren’t in a bar.” In fact, it is hard to understand how this cannot be seen as a hate crime and be treated accordingly. By the same token, it could simply be a case of lesbian invisibility, in which two queer women are not perceived as having been attacked because of their sexual identity or orientation. However, from what Emma MacLean reported, this is clearly what happened as defined by the Halifax Police on their website. It is also not clear why the case was not immediately turned over to the Hate Crime Unit. On their website, Halifax Regional Police state that it “is committed to combatting hate crimes and incidents and would encourage anyone who believes they have experienced a hate crime or incident to report it. The Hate Crime Unit will be notified of all reports that contain details of confirmed or suspected hate motivation.”
According to the Coast’s investigation police sent an email to MacLean on July 1, informing her that “the file is being thoroughly investigated. While I unfortunately cannot share too many details in order to protect the integrity of the investigation, this matter is certainly being prioritized.” It also made a point that the Hate Crime Unit had been engaged. It took a few more days before the Hate Crime Unit reached out to offer support to Emma and Tori. By that time nearly two weeks had passed since the attack. They also requested that Emma retell the story in detail, which seems unnecessarily retraumatizing the victims.
Little has happened since and, as the Coast reports, as of July 9, the couple “is still waiting for answers from the police” and no arrests have been made.
Lesbian Visibility
Lesbian visibility helps fight lesbo-, homo- and queerphobic oppression. Lesbians are actively erased by society in many ways, whether it be through invalidation (such as macro- and micro-aggressive sentiments against lesbians such as “you’re not really a lesbian,” “this is just a phase,” or “you just haven’t found the right man yet”), the perpetuation of lesbophobic social norms by oppressive legislation, governing bodies, media, and education (such as censoring lesbian stories in the media or press releases), as well as pressures that make lesbians fear expressing their true selves.
What should you do if you are witness to an assault or a situation that could escalate to one? See this accompanying article which also has links to support services.
Followup
2024-08-21: CTV News reports that Halifax Regional Police expect charges to be laid. Full story here.
