Homophobic Letters Threaten Violence Against Lesbian Couple Refusing To “Reconvert”

Canada may have pioneered their LGBT rights movement long before the rest of the world caught on, but it doesn’t mean the country doesn’t have their fair share of bigots.

Susan Belyea, a Queen’s University teacher, HuffPo blogger, and proud lesbian, arrived at her Kingston, Ontario home last Friday to find a rather aggressive and unprovoked letter in the mail. Addressed to the “lesbian bitches” at her address, the harassing five-paragraph letter demands that she and her partner leave the city under threat of physical violence.

It read in part:

Lesbian bitches,

We are a small but dedicated group of Kingston residents devoted to removing the scourge of homosexuality in our city. We know you and have been following you for the past several weeks and we wish for you to leave this city, before it is too late, for you. This will be the first of many reminders, each escalating to higher and higher levels of harassment and derailment. Since we have nothing personal against you, only against your sexuality, we suggest you move to more conductive climes like Vancouver, or preferably San Francisco.

The anonymous sender goes on to suggest “reconverting” to heterosexuality as the only way to stop threatening letters in the future. The sender boasts responsibility for forcing other gay couples to move out of the area, and threatens violence if ignored:

If you do not, and take this letter to police, as we expect, we will know about this, since we have contacts in Kingston Police. Our efforts to relocate you will escalate. We wish to avoid this scenario. We are primarily non-violent, but use violence surgically to persuade people. We hope you understand without us painting to lurid a picture.

In the last several years we have relocated a few people like you from the Kingston area, through a set of incentives and effective persuasion. Please join their ranks ASAP. We will watch and wait, and then strike, at home and office, as need arises. These are not empty threats. MOVE, or else!

Disgusting, but you can read the full letter here.

A follow-up letter was posted to Imgur last night, wherein the anonymous sender threatens violence once more, this time with the wrath of a BB gun. “Some of our younger members want to have fun chasing lesbos,” it reads. “We have brought them BB guns and today they are doing target practice…This is thrilling for the youngsters…and what better targets than you?”

The poster on Imgur points out the fact that Kingston’s HIV/AIDS services centre recently came under BB gun fire, and the two incidents may well be connected. “They are disgusting and vile,” centre coordinator Deb Kinder told The Whig. “When I was reading them I felt like I was being transported back in time.”

“I’m doing my best to reach out and see if anybody has a little bit of information that might lead us somewhere, but at this point I have no idea,” she continued. “Of course I would guess whoever they might be are very cowardly because they left no way of anyone contacting them.”

Full transcripts of both letters can be found on Imgur, if you can stomach any more.