Singer Halsey took a moment during an intimate concert in London on Monday night to pay tribute to the lesbian couple attacked on a London bus earlier this month.
Wearing a t-shirt which had a picture of the attacked couple on the front and the words “f*** your straight pride” on the back, the singer delivered a powerful speech about why many members of the LGBTQ+ community do not feel safe outside of Pride parade and “after the bars close.”
“Do you guys see the two young women on my shirt? Do you know who they are? The two people on my shirt are a young couple named Melania and Chris,” Halsey said at the Electric Ballroom on Camden High Street.
“A couple nights ago, right here, they were assaulted because they’re lesbians, because they gave the appearance of being lesbians,” she explained to the crowd.
She continued: “The sad reality is that after the Pride parades are over and after the bars close their Pride nights, when the glitter’s being swept out of the streets, a lot of people get on those trains and they get on those buses and they try to wash the rainbows off their bodies and they peel the stickers off their clothes because when Pride is over, it’s not safe to be gay anymore. Because they are worried that someone is going to viciously assault them or viciously attack them.”
Halsey getting a room full of queer kids to scream “I WILL NOT BE AFRAID” after two women were beaten for being gay in the exact same town she’s performing in. She’s wearing a shirt with their faces on the front, and “FUCK YOUR STRAIGHT PRIDE” on the back. pic.twitter.com/VssWprS3gX
— Sucker!! (AKA Becca!!) (@iamsuckeriam) June 10, 2019
Halsey went on to slam the proposed “straight pride” parade in Boston.
“So when the people around the world ask: ‘Why isn’t there a straight pride parade?’” she said. “The answer is because if there was one, you wouldn’t have to get on the bus and be terrified of being f****** beaten or killed afterwards. That’s why there’s not a straight pride parade.
“Because every f****** day on public transport is a straight pride parade.”
Then, while wrapping herself in a Pride flag on stage, she concluded: “We need to take moments like this when all of us are together to remember how lucky we are to have a safe space like this.”
Halsey wore the victims of the homophobic attack on her shirt with “fuck your straight pride” on the back last night. Her advocacy for the #LGBTQ community is so important and so necessary
