Lez Keep It Real

Remember the Fagbug? Erin Davies returned from her cross-country adventure with plenty of eye-opening stories and memories. Read about her life-changing experience and what she plans to do now.

Erin Davies ~ So I made it back safely to Albany as of last night. How’s the story going? What questions do you have for me? There’s a lot I can share with you about my experiences and the stories I uncovered all around the country and the reactions people had.

Three weeks before I made it home, I got an email from VW stating that they were going to reimburse me for gas and car related expenses. At certain points, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to afford to make it home, but when I felt that way, so many people came forward to help me out financially. Something that could’ve easily made me question the goodness of people, has done the opposite. It has renewed my faith in the goodness of people. So many kind people around the country hosted me, paid for my hotel rooms, organized events for me, and gave me the emotional support I needed to be able to accomplish what I set out to do.

Along the way, I had to replace my front windshield from having a
rock hit it in NM, and I ran over a large rock in Arizona and had to
replace the part of the car that covers the tire. Despite my car
being dinged up along the way, I was able to interview over 300
people in my travels to gather feedback about where people stand on hate crime legislation and homophobia. One of my goals was to confront the general public with my car, so I did many interviews at gas stations, or random stops like that.

Given that I drove my car for 2 months before I headed on the road across the country, I had a general idea of what my documentary would be about. I received over 100 emails from around the country and world from other people who had their cars vandalized in a similar way. Not only does it happen in Albany, it happens everywhere, everyday. Little did I know how bad things were until I decided to go see for myself.

In investigating hate crimes, I felt compelled to stop by Laramie,
Wyoming to see if there was a memorial where Matthew Shepard was killed, but I spent over 3 hours talking to over 30 people about where his body was left and no one could tell me exactly where it happened, even neighbors of where it took place didn’t take the time to find out, and there is not a memorial there, the town has wiped their hands of it and are all very defensive about how they were betrayed. Most people there feel he wasn’t killed for being gay, it was just a drug deal gone wrong.

While I was in Laramie taking a picture in front of the Laramie
Carwash, a man named Brandon came up to me because he saw the word fag on my car and in stopping through to get gas on his way from Salt Lake City, Utah to Greencaste Indiana back to Depauw University, his car was vandalized in the 5 minutes he went inside to pay for the gas he had just pumped. Someone threw something at his windshield and made a crack in it over a foot long that wasn’t there before he went inside. Once he noticed it he went right back inside and asked the woman working there if they had video surveillance. They asked if he had a rainbow sticker or something on his car and told him that type of thing happens there all the time. So as defensive as the people of Laramie would like to be about thinking a gay person couldn’t have been killed because of being gay, Brandon’s experience would say the
contrary. He had an equality sticker on his car. We were both on our way through town stopping to find a memorial and our cars being vandalized brought us together, so much that we went on the adventure together and I ended up staying with him for 3 days in Indiana and investigated Aaron Hall’s murder there and even let him drive my car for 2 days to see what the reaction would be to a man driving and stepping out of a car that says fag on it.

Being in Indiana was a wild experience, Brandon and I got pulled over for having the word fag on my car and the cop continued to tell us that it was an “obscenity” and I said I know it is. He screamed at my Brandon and I and when I told him I was keeping it on traveling around to educate people, he said that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard of. He told me he wanted to go get a razor blade and take it off my window right now. I said well it’s my vehicle and I asked him to please not do that and after that he took his finger nail and started scraping it off my window. I asked him kindly to stop and he yelled at us “well that’s an obscenity and you should do your research on that” and drove off.

While in Indiana, when Brandon and I stopped by the road to look at a map for directions, two 18 year old guys drove by and yelled fag out their window. Once they saw I had a video camera they turned around and I interviewed them. They told us that they didn’t like gay people and that they have themselves written the word fag on other people’s cars. I got the chance to ask them why.

I went to Indiana to investigate Aaron Halls’ murder. He was beaten with a gun, showered with a hose and left to die from hypothermia in the middle of a field in Cruthersville, Indiana after being dragged by his feet down a flight of stairs having his head bang against each step. Why you might ask? The two boys who killed him say that he made a pass on him and that’s their excuse. No one knows if this actually happened or not, but in Indiana there aren’t any hate crime laws in effect, so in this instance, these two boys had 10 days to think over what their reasoning was between the time they killed him and when they got caught. Some people think they made that up to gain sympathy from the judges, and given that this happened in Indiana where there aren’t going to be more severe punishments for a crime like this, it might actually go in the opposite direction, they might actually get less time for having this be their reason for killing him.

Aaron’s wasn’t the first story like this that I uncovered. On my
first stop in Myrtle Beach, SC, I learned about Sean Kennedy (20) who was killed May 16, 2007 in Greenville, SC, another state that has no hate crime legislation in effect. Sean’s killer, yet again another 18-year-old white male, admitted to hitting him so hard in the face that he broke his wrist because he didn’t like his sexual preference.

Sean’s mom, Elke and sister Dawn are actively trying to fight for
hate crime legislation to be passed in SC. Even though the boy who
killed him admitted he did it because he didn’t like his sexual
preference and that is in the first police report, the investigator
on the case is still convinced it didn’t have to do with that.

While I was in SC staying at Elke Kennedy’s home, I was on the news and the news team refused to put the word fag in their news segment on my trip because they deemed it to be an offensive term. My second stop was in St. Petersburg, FL where I heard about Ryan Skipper’s death. Ryan had just bought a brand new car and was only 25 years old when again 2 18/19 year old caucasian boys decided to stab him 20 times in his own car and go around town bragging that they just killed a faggot.

My car doesn’t say dyke on it, it says fag, and because of that, I am interested in knowing why someone would feel that compelled to spray paint that on my car, punch Sean Kennedy, beat Aaron Hall for making a pass, or stab Ryan Skipper. What is wrong with our society that boys and men are taught to hate each other for even thinking about being homosexual or expressing emotional toward one another? What is this about? What drives this type of behavior? That is what I spent most of my time investigating on my trip, wondering why it’s ok to be a lesbian in our society and not to be a gay man.

While I was in LA, someone tried to take the word fag off my window with soap and a razor blade. This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to take it off, someone also tried to take it off in Albany with a razor blade as well.

When I was in Moses Lake, Washington staying at a Super 8, I was
asked to move my car out of the parking lot in the morning because it was creating a “problem.” I refused to move my car or be treated any differently because I was driving it. It’s not the first time that has happened. I’ve been asked to move my car two other times, the first being at my college the first day I drove it and at a high school I observed at for my grad program.

While I was in Chicago on the Feast of Fools podcast, the guys at the station called up the guy who left me the note in Albany that said “It’s a shame you made this up” with his phone number. I hadn’t talked to this guy for quite awhile and all along felt he was a suspect, so it was crazy to confront him again and ask him why he thinks I made it up? He feels that this type of thing has never
happened or could happen in his hometown of Albany and he thinks I’m making Albany look bad. It’s happened before, it was cleaned up and no one heard about it.

While I was in Las Vegas, a 7-year-old boy tapped on my arm and asked my while I was parking my car what happened to it and I told him someone vandalized it and he said to me “that’s so gay.” That was a moment when I wanted to freeze time and explain to him that it’s hurtful what he is saying and it is the same thing as someone doing what they did to my car, the same hurtfulness. Under his intentions, yes, someone vandalizing my car is gay by our societies standards, it’s messed up, bad, negative, but I’d like to disagree with this 7-year-old boy, there is nothing wrong with being gay.

I expected to come home to a welcome home party, but 10 days into the trip my girlfriend broke up with me and many of her friends have been boycotting me ever since. I am proud of myself for making it home safely and for taking this on, but returning home is bittersweet. I have to move out of my current apartment by the end of the month. It’s been tough to be on the road in a different city nearly everyday for 58 days and to return home to the stress of moving.

Everything in my life has changed because of my decision to keep the words on my car and travel around to educate people. I am taking a year off grad school to travel around and launch a second tour to high schools and colleges, to edit my documentary, and to write a book.

If you would like to leave Erin a message of encouragement, visit her at her website.

fagbug, erin davies, hate crime, fagbug cross-country road trip