After a night of gigs this past Saturday night, the reigning Mr. RockBear NYC and drag performer Moises F. Herrera says he was the victim of a gay bashing in Brooklyn.
"Someone pushed me from behind and I fell to the ground," Herrera, who has been doing drag for seven years, told Out in a phone interview. "Two people were kicking me while I guess the other guy was going through my wallet."
As the assault went on, the three unidentified men repeatedly called Herrera names like "faggot" and "bitch."
While the bruising from the incident is minimal, and the attackers left his phone after going through his wallet, Herrera is still unsettled by the bashing.
"I have not reported it," he said. "I'm still considering the implications of what might happen if I do; I didn't get a good look at their faces other than the fact that they were men of color."
He fears as a person of color, too, that formal complaints would potentially create unnecessary profiling of others like him in as the borough continues to change in demographics.
Moises Herrera. Photo by Flash Onyx.
"I don't want to cause a witch hunt in a neighborhood in Brooklyn that's kind of in the middle of being gentrified," he said. "I don't want to give any reason for there to be a higher police presence than there exists because it's not always necessarily a good thing for people of color."
According to the FBI, LGBT people are more likely to be targets of hate crimes over any other minority group.
In charts provided to the New York Times, queer people are twice as likely to be targeted as African-Americans for hate crimes and in 2014, the rate of hate crimes against queer people surpassed the rate of hate crimes committed against Jews.
While Herrera believes the attack initially started from just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he does admit that it got worse once the assailants saw his makeup.
On Facebook, friends have shown support. More than 75 messages were posted on Herrera's status about the incident, and he says that fellow titleholders in the bear and leather communities have reached out to offer assistance.
"They got a bruise out of me but the toughest part of any queer person in nightlife is our spirit and it's going to be pretty hard to break that," Herrera said. "I'm just urging all of my friends who are still performing if you have the money cab it. If you don't, there's so many drag queens in New York City now, find a friend to walk home with."
"One day hopefully there will be no advice needed," he continued.
