Member of LGBT Youth Center Attacked

By Joseph Erbentraut in News on Nov 24, 2009 8:00PM

A member of the Youth Pride Center (YPC), an LGBT-geared Hyde Park youth support center, was attacked earlier this month as he left a Green Line train stop. It is the fourth anti-gay attack on a member of the South Side center in as many weeks and the 17th this year according to a report from the Windy City Times.

The 19-year-old attack victim, referred to as Prince in the WCT story, reports that on Nov. 10, a group of five men targeted him for his "feminine" appearance and threatened him with a gun before beating him to the point of both his eyes being swollen shut. His attackers reportedly took his coat, bag and phone. Though Prince says that others witnessed the crime, including one individual he asked to call the police, no one reported it.

In response to the violence facing Chicago's LGBT youth, particularly youth of color on the city's South and West sides, YPC president Frank Walker said an awareness campaign titled "Flatline the Violence" is under works.

In related news, the numbers are in from the FBI on reported hate crimes nationwide last year. All told, the number of incidents increased 2 percent. Hate crime incidents based on sexual orientation increased the most of any category - 11 percent - while religious hate crimes increased 9 percent. Racially-motivated crimes - the largest category - decreased 1 percent.