Except even now I still get harassed for holding a guy's hand. I still look over my shoulder.
Because people will give you disgusted looks when lots of other people are around, maybe they'll be brave enough to attack you. But when it's just them and their mates around, they _will_ attack you.
Exactly this. I think people are willingly blind. It can be hard, because you don't see what others are claiming they're commonly victims of. You don't want to admit that something bad is happening right under your nose and worse, that you've been unable to see it! I'll admit, when I was younger I also believed the problems weren't as large as they are. Not gay, but did experience far more racism than I expected (experiences in sibling comment). Truth is that the world is complex and that your single experience is nowhere near enough to make good judgements about how likely events are. There's far more going on than what we see, and we're sold on simplicity and that if we don't see it that it doesn't exist despite overwhelming evidence.
