Young Lesbian in Brutal Attack on Thanksgiving Day

The 23-year-old was beaten at her girlfriend's family Thanksgiving celebration.

Diane Anderson-Minshall

Diane Anderson-Minshall is the CEO of Pride Media, and editorial director of The Advocate, Out, and Plus magazine. She's the winner of numerous awards from GLAAD, the NLGJA, WPA, and was named to Folio's Top Women in Media list. She and her co-pilot of 30 years, transgender journalist Jacob Anderson-Minshall penned several books including Queerly Beloved: A Love Across Genders.

Read Full Bio

Diane Anderson-Minshall

November 26 2012 4:00 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

deliciousdiane

Sorry to interrupt...
But we wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading. Your support makes original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Help us hold Trump accountable.

One-time Monthly

$19.67 $50 Other

$5 $19.67 $50

A Thanksgiving Day assault on a young lesbian in Mobile County, Ala. has infuriated LGBT activists who responded with a viral campaign to get hate crime charges filed against the alleged perpetrator. According to Robin Raven at Yahoo! News, 23-year-old Mallory Owens was invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with her girlfriend's family. What happened there was anything but festive. According to Yahoo! she was attacked by her girlfriend's brother, 18-year-old Travis Hawkins, Jr., and sustained a number of severe injuries including, among others, bleeding on the brain, crushed cheek bones, broken nose, and skull fractures.

Travis Hawkins, Jr. was arrested and charged with second-degree assault. but Owens' family and supporters are calling for hate crime charges against the man. There is a Facebook group, Justice Today for Mallory, which Sonia Mason, owner of The Red Carpet in Pensacola, Fla., started to get the word out about the tragic crime. Posts on Facebook have been cropping up all over the U.S. today in support of Owens.

There's also a petition on Change.org aimed at pushing Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich to to meter out the proper justice for Travis Hawkins, Jr.

But, it took four days for the mainstream media to pick up the story, says Raven, and only then "after a cry from the supporters of Mallory who flooded their Facebook page with requests for a report on the tragedy" did local news station WKRG report on the assault.