We have a winner!

Well, the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia is officially closed. The good news is, I ran the names of all the lovely people who commented on the previous post in order to enter the drawing to win all the episodes of The City Darkens (to download the first episode free, go here) and we have a winner! Lisabet Sarai, please stand up and claim your prize!!! Applause!!!

Okay, so in real life I'll be emailing Lisabet. Thank you all for reading and participating in HAHAT this year. Let me know if you do anything wonderful to promote acceptance of LGBT people in the coming months!

HAHAT: Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia

Hello all! I'm happy to say that I'm participating in the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia this year. I only just came across it about a month ago, so this is my first year both as a blogger and a general participant.

I had a friend named Rufus when I lived in El Cajon many years ago, who was a sweetie. He liked to flirt with me which I enjoyed very much since my first husband, who I was married to at the time, was pretty lame at making me feel pretty, etc. Rufus was married and had a child, but he also had a boyfriend; I'm not sure if his wife was okay with this or even knew about it. In any case, one night around 2am Rufus and his boyfriend were walking down a street in El Cajon (a low income neighborhood in San Diego known for its white supremacists) hand in hand. Witnesses saw several men stop them. They shot and killed them both execution-style.

The perpetrators were never caught.

I'm deeply happy to be away from El Cajon, but I've found that in NorCal there is still a lot of homophobia. Many people I encounter who don't live in California think that it's a great place for LGBT people, but while you do have pockets like SF, West Hollywood, and Hillcrest in San Diego, there's still a lot of progress to be made.

Friday is International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (May 17th). Consider doing something to spread the word about LGBT rights. Got ideas? Post them in the comments!

A couple of other questions to consider for commenting:
Have you ever known anyone targeted with violence solely for some aspect of their identity? Tell us what happened.
What's the best way to handle hate crimes? Should they be punished more severely than other crimes or treated the same?

Comment on this post and add an email and a preferred ebook format. I will do a random drawing of names (using an online utility) and the winner will receive free copies of all of the episodes of The City Darkens, which is LGBT fantasy. You can read more about the first episodes here. Some episodes are not yet out. The winner will receive them as soon as I'm done editing and formatting them.

The contest ends late in the day on May 27th.The winner will be announced on here on the blog (on May 28th, barring some unforeseen obstacle) and contacted via email.

Want to comment but don't want to enter the drawing? Post away! I love reader comments.