The owners of an LGBTQ+ gift shop in the U.K. are fighting back against repeated homophobic vandalism with humor and positivity.
Claire Platz, who co-owns This Shop is So Gay in York with her brother Xander, detailed the latest incident in a January 19 Instagram post.
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“Our gay shop’s been egged!” she explains in a video clip showing several broken eggs that were allegedly thrown at the storefront.
“Eggs are expensive!” Claire jokes in the clip. “Throwing one at a shop window is a choice, and if your enemy is a shop window you’re already losing.”
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The post’s comments are filled with similar good humored support.
“Ma’am you missed the chance to say EGGSTREMELY GAY,” one response reads, to which the shop replied, “Oh that would have been eggcellent!”
This is far from the first time the Platz’s shop has been vandalized. As the BBC reported in April, soon after the siblings opened their current location on York’s Parliament St. in March, a Pride flag displayed outside the store was ripped down twice within three weeks.
Xander told the outlet that even at their former location, some passersby would shout aggressively at the shop, which had the word “Gay” painted across its front windows in large letters.
“We’ve always said we’re going to turn hate to great, so every time somebody is hateful we make something great out of it,” he said. “When they were hateful about the little gay shop, it got more successful for us, because people kept coming in and telling us their stories.”
Since then, the shop has posted several videos to Instagram detailing more instances of vandalism and harassment. In late May, someone allegedly cut the string lights decorating the store’s entrance. In July, Claire reported that someone had ripped down a trans Pride flag that flew outside the shop.
In August, Claire posted a video claiming that two girls had released a box full of live crickets all over the shop. “I think they thought they were being clever, but all they actually did was make themselves look a bit pathetic,” she said in the clip. The Platz’s have since adopted one of the crickets as the shop’s mascot, naming it Leggy Gaga.
On Instagram, Claire has also detailed numerous instances of people entering the shop to harass her and passersby heckling the storefront.
Following the flag vandalism in April – which damaged the storefront’s brickwork – the Platz’s said they raised nearly $1,000 in small community donations via an online fundraiser, inspiring them to launch a charity aimed at building a “fun” LGBTQ+ history museum in the shop’s basement.
“It’s all about – for me and Claire – having fun before we die,” Xander told the BBC, “and laughing as much as possible.”
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