From the swingers in Highlands Ranch to those who like to sip suds on a Sunday, Denver’s LGBT community offers many different strokes for LGBT folks. Unless you’re homeless.
Homeless people in Denver live dangerous lives. The homeless community is profoundly homophobic and LGBT people, especially transgender people, relentlessly are picked on. I experienced this myself while homeless in 2019. In fact, I was smart enough to just keep my sexuality to myself during homelessness or even lie and say I was straight. But some people still didn’t buy it, and I was beaten several times. The worst beating occurred on Free Mall Ride when a man in “skag drag” (drag intended to look like a man dressed as a woman as opposed to passable drag) punched me in the mouth, splitting my lip and loosening my teeth. No one dresses in skag drag unless they’re a frat boy on Halloween. I am certain my assailant was not LGBT but rather, a homophobic idiot.
LGBT people flocking to Denver
Housekeys Action Network Denver, or HAND, a homeless advocacy group, issued a statement this week about being LGBT and homeless in Denver: