Homophobia in McDonalds
2004
“I had come up to Birmingham with my girlfriend. We were in McDonalds
in Cherry Street right in the centre of Birmingham, the one near the
cathedral. It was New Year's Eve 2004 and we were all completely in the
spirit of it, in a jovial mood, and we were being a bit obvious that we
were girlfriends, saying ‘Oh sweetie’ and kissing and cuddling and
being affectionate with one another, saying 'I love you'. There were
four or five black guys, about 16, 17, waiting in the queue in front of
us and they obviously noticed that we were lesbian. They kind of took
the piss out of us and we completely ignored them. These guys were
calling me 'dirty lezza' 'disgusting' and really horrible things. They
were being pretty nasty, but they ended up going away, thank God! We
were still waiting for our McNuggets to be cooked five minutes later,
and I was standing by the front desk when one of them ran back in and
punched me in the head a couple of times. I fell unconscious on the
front desk of McDonalds; I was out for about ten or twenty seconds, I
can't remember. The manager didn't even close the store or anything. My
girlfriend was freaking out. I had to ask the manager to call the
police, but the Police didn't come even though we called them. We
waited half an hour, an hour. Well I thought ‘I'm not letting this ruin
our New Year's Eve’, I've been looking forward to this for how long, I
was so determined. It was terrible”.
Contributed by: Becky Tebbett, 27