Last month, 19-year old Jye Hayman from Melbourne was attacked outside a house party in the suburb of Dingley Village when a 21st gathering turned sour.
At around 12:30am on 21 November, things took a turn for the worst. Jye sustained major injuries after an attack fuelled by ignorance and homophobia. Jye's jaw was broken, snapped through to his gum. “The guy who hit me was saying stuff behind my back,” he says. “When I heard about it, I confronted him.”
For victims of sexuality-driven assaults, it's hard to process that these vicious and unprovoked attacks still happen. “He told me he didn't know what I was talking about, and then later he came up with a group of friends who were all going at me verbally. The physical stuff happened later.”
It was three against one and Jye's partner, Brodie Lucas, is still shaken from the night's events. “We were getting in a taxi, and a group of people threw bottles at it,” he says. “Jye got out to ask what their problem was, and halfway through his sentence he got attacked.”
Jye says the attacks fuelled by sexuality need to stop. “I feel sorry for anyone who feels the need to be violent to express their views on people being gay,” he says. “There is obviously a lack of education and humility in them.”
