Luc Di Gallo was walking, light-hearted, alongside the young man who had arranged to meet him in a park. The next moment, he was suffocating, face down, as he was being beaten up and called a “dirty faggot.”
He had just fallen into a homophobic ambush.
It happened on a warm evening in June 2023. A few hours earlier, Luc Di Gallo had chatted with a subscriber to the popular gay dating app GrindrThe two men had agreed to meet at the park in the late evening.
“It wasn’t a regular meeting place for me. I thought, why not? I didn’t think about it. I was a bit euphoric, there had been neighborhood parties that night.” The park was full. Families were trying to escape the heatwave. Young people were playing soccer. “It was a reassuring context.”
Luc Di Gallo did not recognize the man waiting for him at the meeting place. “He was wearing a surgical mask. He claimed to be allergic to pollen.” Afterwards, he understood that the profile was fake and that the photo posted on the platform was not his.
But only after the fact. After… all the blows.
The young man dragged him to a dimly lit area of the park. “There he grabbed me by the neck, strangled me and shouted: ‘That’s it! Get out!'” Three men appeared to beat him up. They ordered him to lie face down on the ground, before fleeing with his money, cell phone and credit cards.
The attack lasted less than five minutes. The longest of his life. A year later, one question continues to haunt him: “Why me?” It haunts him, even though he unfortunately knows the answer all too well: “I was targeted because I’m gay.”
It feels like 1982. Or deep in America. redneck.
Yet we are at the gates of the City of Light: Luc Di Gallo is a French municipal elected official, deputy mayor of Montreuil. Since his attack, at least two other residents of this suburb of Paris have lived the same nightmare. And this kind of attack is not limited to Montreuil. All regions of France are affected.
France does not keep an official count, but a documentary broadcast in 2023 by Mediapart counted 300 victims of homophobic ambushes in five years. One victim per week!
Watch the documentary “Guet-ambush, invisible crimes” from Mediapart
Last week, the scourge reached Quebec.
You may have seen the news item: in Sherbrooke, two men were attacked in the middle of the night, less than an hour apart. Both had arranged to meet on the platform GrindrBoth were greeted by three hooded individuals who surrounded them before beating them up and fleeing.
Read “Two LGBTQ+ people victims of an ambush in Estrie”
I write “miscellaneous fact”, but it is more serious than that. It is a real phenomenon.
There are people in France, and now in Quebec, who take the trouble to create fake accounts, to bait victims and to go hunting, with hatred in their hearts.
People who, in 2024, have a hobby of “breaking gay people”.
Luc Di Gallo hesitated before recounting his traumatic experience on X last year. If he decided to do so, it was mainly to raise awareness among users of platforms like Grindr.
Some have criticized her for following a stranger into a park in the evening. It’s the equivalent of telling a woman who has been raped that she asked for it, by wearing a skirt that was too short. For those who haven’t understood yet, repeat after me: the problem is the aggressor, not the victim.
SCREENSHOT OF LUC DI GALLO’S X PROFILE
Luc Di Gallo after his homophobic attack
Nevertheless, last spring, Montreuil city hall launched a prevention campaign against homophobic ambushes. In particular, it is recommended to use pseudonyms on dating platforms, to ask for a telephone number and to inform a relative of the place and time of the meeting, if possible.
“We can also ask [à une personne qui nous intéresse] to send us a photo of her in a certain position – for example, with a hand on her head – to make sure it’s not a fake profile,” suggests Luc Di Gallo. The idea is not to prevent yourself from meeting people, but to be a little vigilant. “If I had known, the meeting in the park would never have happened.”
Mediapart’s figures are probably an underestimate. Many victims do not dare to file a complaint. And the French justice system does not always recognize the homophobic nature of these traps. They pass for simple thefts. Violent, certainly, but not necessarily hateful.
Behind these attacks, there are often “young people aged 15-18 who perhaps think that it is less serious to attack a homosexual than a woman or a father”, suggests Luc Di Gallo.
These petty criminals have understood that users of Grindr Not all of them have come out of the closet. Opportunistic, they rely on the shame and silence of their victims to avoid being denounced.
But shame must change sides. Urgently.
On this side of the Atlantic, the numbers are staggering. In recent years, hate crimes targeting sexual orientation have exploded in the country. In 2023, they increased by 69% compared to the previous year, according to Statistics Canada.
We have not yet finished looking for the causes. But we already know that online hatred is now spilling over into the streets. With so much virtual bashing of members of the LGBTQ+ community, it should probably come as no surprise that they are being bashed in the real world.