Maria Canton
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 02/99) - Judy Watt says a businessman in a suit has called her a dyke while passing her on the street.

As an openly gay woman in Yellowknife, Watt has also been hit, pushed, cornered, forced to flee in a taxi cab and endure all of the stereotypical verbal abuses that are seemingly inescapable for those who are gay.

"I lose sleep worrying about my safety," says Watt.

"I feel as though I have to be careful about where I go and I have to have people with me all of the time."

Watt waited four months before she started going out to the local bars with her girlfriend, igniting what was to be an unrelenting stream of abuses against her.

"I was cornered by a group of women in the bathroom of a bar and later the same night they hit me in the face with a beer bottle," says Watt.

The bouncer wouldn't help her, claiming he didn't see anything -- when a barmaid tried helping, she, too, was threatened.

Watt didn't go out for weeks after that and when she did, she was cornered in a grocery store parking lot in the middle of the day.

"I'm shocked that people react this way, I guess they really have a problem with it," she said.

And although the president of the gay/lesbian organization OutNorth says generally speaking, Yellowknife is a reasonably accepting community, she knows that these violations exist.

"I don't doubt for a minute that those incidents of violence happened and I don't doubt for a minute that they happened because she's gay," said Zoe Raemer, speaking of Watt.

As a gay and lesbian organization, OutNorth seeks to educate their society and the public, lobby governments for social, political and legal changes, as well as organize social events for the local gay community.

"Certainly not everyone wants to wait for OutNorth to have a social event so they can go out and dance," said Raemer.

"People should be able to go out with their partners without the fear of repercussions."

The issue, Raemer says, is what can be done about acts of violence and verbal abuses.

And she says it is up to organizations like OutNorth to pressure the government at all levels and to ensure that Yellowknife has resources in place that are accessible to gays and lesbians with a no fear factor.

These pressures are happening, but they traditionally take a long time to transpire.

Watt says her situation has improved over the past month -- she feels as though she can go out alone during the day, but she remains skeptical of who may decide to take out their ignorance on her.