A social worker in New York was verbally and physically assaulted while riding the subway during rush hour last week, and she caught the entire thing on video.
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Pearl Love is an outreach social worker for Translatina Network. Last Thursday, she was riding the 6 train to work when a woman sitting across from her launched into an unprovoked transphobic tirade, verbally assaulting her before eventually standing up and beating Love while the other riders did nothing.
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“It was a crowded train and everyone heard it but no one helped me,” Love explains. “Now you can understand what’s happening in my everyday life. That happens all the time. But it’s my first time recording it.”
Love spoke with Mic’s Matthew Rodriguez about the incident and the struggles she faces each day as a trans woman.
“That’s just a really small thing that I face every day,” she shared. “I go to a job interview, they look at me like, ‘You’re never going to get a job. They never even waste your time asking anything about you when you look feminine.”
See the disturbing video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuZJ-FJDV8Y
Roan
Only an ignorant, vile beast would treat another minority like this. Apparently she’s forgotten that not so long ago her parents or grandparents wouldn’t even be sitting next to white people on public transportation.
Bauhaus
Disheartening.
Stache
Wow. So the black women is also a Ra*ist and a Homophobe.
Masc Pride
What were the other people on the train supposed to do? That is NYC. It’s very likely the people on that train have seen many stories on the news about people who wound up dead for intervening in subway fights. They were all minding their business so they can go home to their families when they get off the train.
Stache
Damn. I’d be like STFU you ugly ghetto bitch. This is why I stay on my side of the fence and avoid places that put me in contact with crazies like this. Looks like a living hell.
Stache
@Masc Pride: Yeah, I’d say something but that’s just me. She’s a thug and I understand people apprehension on confronting her though.
Hussain-TheCanadian
Guys its beside the point that the homophobe is black – She’s a nasty, heart twisted, bully who is obviously ignorant.
What really matters, for the gay community, with its massive businesses and organizations, is to force laws that protect the LGBT community in jobs, housing, medical care and so on.
Jonathonz
I live in NYC and unfortunately it’s a dangerous place. I think most NY’ers consider it personal policy to not get involved in anything that doesn’t personally involve them. This is a place where innocent people get pushed in front of trains, shot and stabbed in public for NOTHING whatsoever. I’m just glad the victim is physically OK because that’s never guaranteed in this place.
Matt Achine
@Stache: She doesn’t look “black” at all, but please keep up the assumptions.
joeyty
@Jonathonz: I live here too. I wouldn’t intervene, especially if I don’t know what’s going on. It could be the continuation of something personal between them, for all I know. And I’m not gettng stabbed for someone who under any other circumstances is probably my enemy. (The only time I’d jump into a situation was if a child was the victim).
Masc Pride
@Stache: I think people in big cities react a bit differently to stuff like this because they’re more aware of how crazy people can be. A student was stabbed and killed for his iPhone on the subway in my area; would you have intervened?
@joeyty: That’s a good point. We really don’t know what sparked this whole thing. The video clearly starts after something has already happened. The posting to social media makes this all seem a bit manipulated. There are always three sides to the story.
Daniel-Reader
This is why the 2nd Amendment exists – so people can defend themselves against sociopaths who think they have a right to assault others.
Sansacro
@Masc Pride: Nothing in the video suggests a third side, sorry. You are a total wimp. No excuse for this behavior. I would have definitely looked for a cop at next stop. Hope the attacked person did that and pressed charges.
Roan
@Matt Achine:
She looks black. Which makes her behavior even worse.
Stache
@Masc Pride: Depends. I’d be involved in some way though.
Masc Pride
@Sansacro: Since you seem to know it all, can you explain why the transsexual is refusing to file charges? Why would someone who claims to be harassed and assaulted so often (on a subway they frequently must ride) refuse to file charges with video evidence on hand? Please read these excerpts before responding:
“Pearl said she experiences harassment in public so frequently that at first she didn’t find the assault out of the ordinary. “It happens all the time basically,” Pearl said. “I just walk away mostly, or I go to other room or other subway.” This is the first time Pearl has recorded an incident of harassment.”
“I cannot go anywhere without the subway. What am I gonna do?”
“Though many people urged Pearl to report the incident to police, she said she is dealing with too much in her life at the moment to go to a precinct and file a report.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trans-woman-attacked-nyc-train-120300628.html
Something is off.
Masc Pride
@Stache: Depends? That makes it seems like there are circumstances where you would opt against intervening as well.
joeyty
@Sansacro: Then if you lived in NYC you’d never get to work if you got involved in every fight you see on a daily basis.
Franklin
@Masc Pride: Maybe she has reported it to the police before and nothing has happened. I’d be willing to bet that there are more than a few people on the NYPD that probably think she deserved it for “choosing” to live her life the way that she did. How soon we forgot how lackadaisical police used to be about gay bashings in the not so distant past.
Masc Pride
@Franklin: Or maybe not. The article clearly says Pearl’s reason for not reporting the incident is apparently because Pearl is too busy to be bothered. It’s interesting how dire Pearl makes this supposedly persistent problem seem, but then when Pearl is encouraged to do something about it (while possessing video evidence), Pearl all of a sudden has more important things to handle. There may be NYPD officers like you’ve described, but they would still have to file a report. It seems Pearl would rather take this to social media, which is odd and questionable.
Masc Pride
We also don’t know what these people did after they got off the train. One of them could’ve very well reported the altercation to a station employee, which would apparently be much more than what Pearl Love is willing to do.
Franklin
@Masc Pride: Yep they’d have to file a report, and then what? I’m sure they’d make it their highest priority. I don’t think it’s weird at all for her all not to file the report, and post the video instead. Wasn’t there just an article on this site about a lesbian that put a video up recording of a guy that followed her into the ladies room. People these days are using video to shine a light on man things that people otherwise are oblivious too.
Louis
It was a crowded train and everyone heard it but no one helped me,” Love explains. “Now you can understand what’s happening in my everyday life. That happens all the time. But it’s my first time recording it.”
This is both heartbreaking and infuriating.
I hope these cowardly individuals who didnt care one iota experience were able to sleep that night .
Of course thats sarcasm I actually wish for it to bite them in the ass eventually for simply not caring and not even trying to help this woman.
I cant watch this video these kinds of videos always piss me off and it makes me want to reach through the screen and slap that woman and those rotten people who sat there and did nothing.
These bystanders are pathetic individuals and yet another perfect example of the HUMAN RACE nowadays.
Disgusting and my heart goes out to this poor woman transgenders have never nor ever will deserve this .
These people just need to crawl back into their holes and never come out again.
Despicable individuals.
Louis
@Hussain-TheCanadian: Absolutely correct beautifully stated.
Tackle
In this day and age, I don’t know how anyone can be so certain that this woman is Black. Haven’t we learned anything from the Dallas BBQ restaurant, involving
Bayna El-Amin?? She looks like she could be his sister, and he’s Middle Eastern. And as far as I know, he does not identify as Black. She also looks like she could be the sister of Melissa Gorga of the Real Housewives of NJ, and she’s Italian. I have seen many Sicilians who look like this, or have this particular look. As well as Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, Brazilians . Yes some in these groups are indeed Black, or have African blood. But some do not. And some who may look Black, may not necessarily identify as Black. We don’t get to make that call on how one chooses to self identify.
joeyty
@Louis: You wouldn’t be so judgemental if you rode the subway everyday and learned what it’s like. Because nobody gets involved in a case where, usually, the attackee (in this case the transgender individual) turns on you as well makes them smart, not cowardly.
Masc Pride
@Franklin: I don’t know what would happen as a result of filing a report, and you don’t know either. One has to actually file a report to find out. Pearl took this to social media, and social media recommended going to the police, which kinda crushes your claim that social media will be more effective than law enforcement.
I agree that social media can be useful for stuff like this under certain circumstances. If Pearl filed a police report and provided the video footage, and the police dragged on it and didn’t seem interested in helping, then Pearl could take to social media to get the story out to put pressure on the department. This is a totally different scenario. Pearl would rather get help from YouTube and Facebook than get help from the police, which raises some questions about the motivation and authenticity here. We’ve seen lots of these stories turn out to not be what was originally claimed.
Masc Pride
@Hussain-TheCanadian: Race isn’t exactly beside the point here. In shouting r@cial epithets at this transperson, this girl made part of this about race. She would most likely have a problem with someone sitting and screaming black epithets at her.
Blackceo
Ugh….what a trashy bitch!!! I feel sorry for her child if he/she turns out to be gay or transgender with a mother like that. So vile and disgusting. Like bitch what the fuck? I never understood people reacting with such vitriol to others based on anything when that person is not important in your life. What does that person’s dress style or being have anything to do with her? I never let anyone have that kind of power over me to make me stoop to such a low level and expend that kind of energy.
Karma will come back to get her ass. I wouldn’t piss in her mouth if her teeth were on fire.
Captain Obvious
Gotta love when the resident r@cists at Queerty turn one black person doing something wrong into a representative of all black people. By far more ignorant than anything in the video itself.
They’re doing the same thing they’re pissed at the woman in the video for.
Tackle
@Captain Obvious: And don’t forget that the saying of, that there are more r@cist in the LQBTQ community, then there are homophobics in the Black community is definitely true…
blessedwithlove
I got confused! I thought the fowl-mouthed woman was going to be abused. It took me half the video to realize she was the abuser. I’d like to smack the crap out of her!
o.codone
they took my first comment off. so much for the free exchange of ideas and first amendment rights and all of that. fascist queerty queers just shut everybody up that they think isn’t with their liberal agenda. but we love them anyway. because liberal hipsters are the most fuckable bottoms on the planet.
that said, my original point was that if you’re going out in public looking like a circus clown, wearing your psychiatric problems on your sleeve, people are going to be disturbed, and they’re going to say something. deal with it. it’s New Fucking York.