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Last week I survived an assault from somebody which was an attempted murder, his intent was to kill me simply because he percieved me to be something I'm not and hated me so much that he felt he should end my life. At the time, I didn't take the threat seriously, I thought he was just some crazy guy and the actual doragatory term didn't actually apply to me, otherwise I would've taken it seriously. I've never experienced anything like this to such an extent, and it has definitely jostled me. I have always been an adrogynous women, I cannot change that, and as much I love San Francisco, like love, hate exists everywhere, even places seen as the safest places to be.

I would go more into detail but that's probably for my journal or answering any questions. Do any of you have experience survivng hate crimes? Do you have any suggestions about getting through the trauma and not internalizing another persons hatred?

Well, considering the fact the guy'd probably be killed or seriously injured by a stab wound if he tried to kill me as a hate crime, I'd feel more hateful towards those that hate others needlessly.

If everyone's comfortable I'm going to go into more detail. Partially because if I could defend myself against this attempted murder I would have. Part of the reason this is so difficult to deal with is because of the shock, surprise, severity, and intent of the assault. It is only through the grace of beings greater then myself that I am still alive today.

It happened on Friday night/Saturday morning of May 27th. I was going to my usual 12 step meeting that happens at midnight at a coffee shop near the ocean of SF. The most public beach there... Since I neither have a license or a car(in San Francisco a car is more of a liability in some ways, since public transportation can take you everywhere and parking is insanely difficult. Statistics in SF are for every one available parking spot there are 6 cars on the road) I took the usual public transportation down to the coffee shop. I arrived a little over a half an hour early, and was walking up to talk to some of my fellow twelve steppers. I had also recieved a call earlier from the person who usually run/leads the meeting asking me to fill in for them since they were running late. I had agreed while I was on the bus, so I was walking up to the coffee shop and I passed this guy who was mumbling to himself and didn't seem to together. As I walked past he mumbled very clearly to me "I'm gonna get you you ****** Tranny!" and walked off around the corner of the coffee shop away from me. Since I'm not a transgender women I didn't take the threat seriously, also since I saw him leave I didn't think he was serious about his threat. I thought to myself as I was walking up to talk to fellow twelve steppers and run the meeting that if he was going to threaten me, he should atleast get his doragatory term right. At about 12:50am what I thought really didn't matter. We were getting ready to close the meeting when another women screamed "Oh My God!" shortly followed by another screaming "Look Out!" I began to look around, confused in those short seconds. Out of my peripheral vision I saw the same individual charging the window, and then a rock the size of my head crashed through the window, the rock flew diagonally at my head and landed on my hip, just barely missing my head. the hole in the window was the size of my head, the amount of force didn't shatter the window, it slowly crumbled behind me for about fifteen minutes as the cops were taking care of everything. From the impact of the rock, glass had shattered all around me and as far as to the coffee counter, I ended up going to the E.R. and stayed there for five hours getting checked out, physically, I was amazingly ok. Only one shard of glass embedded into my neck, I had some minor head trauma from the larger pieces of glass shattering after hitting my head. I was covered in powdered glass and almost had a heart attack the moment it happened. The good news is the cops caught him, and that I'm ok. Just really traumatized, and dealing with a lot of my P.T.S.D. around this and everything else I've survived in my life.

I hope this puts more perspective on my questions about surviving hate, I'm not the type of women to mess with and know thoroughly how to defend myself, but something like this, there is no defense, only death or trauma from almost dying and lots of shock and surprise.

one thing to help the anxiety: meditation. it's not uch but i hope it might help you in your time of need.