Is Antwerpen becoming less accepting of LGBTQ+ people?
Last weekend, I was walking back home from the Pride festival. I had separated from my friends and was walking alone along de Italiëlei to get home when a car stopped at one of the traffic lights and someone inside started shouting “F*cking homo”.
It caught me completely by surprise, and I didn’t know how to react. I did manage to take a picture of their license plate though.
I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. I didn’t know these people, and I wasn’t even wearing anything that would obviously identify me as gay.
I’ve lived in Antwerp for five years, and I had never experienced any kind of homophobia in any part of the city I’ve been to. It’s shocking to me that someone would go out of their way to make you feel unwelcome, especially during a weekend when we’re supposed to feel free to express who we are and celebrate our queerness.
I’ve talked to some friends about it, and they also seem to have the feeling that some people in Antwerp are becoming increasingly discriminatory towards the LGBTQ+ community. One of them even shared this news article with me:
How is the LGBTQ+ community out there experiencing this? Do you also feel less and less safe, or more afraid of being yourselves in the streets?