Gay Man Says Security Guards Savagely Beat Him at Popular Nightclub

A 21-year-old gay man says he was attacked over the weekend by the bouncers at the Manchester, England, gay nightclub Bloom.

Ronan Gordon said that while he was at the club the security staff jumped him. He says he suffered a broken nose and will need to have surgery on an eye socket.

"Last night while I was in Bloom, I was targeted by five bouncers and beaten in an unprovoked attack," Gordon wrote on a post on Instagram showing him bruised and injured. "I have a broken nose a shattered eye socket and have to have surgery, I'm full of cuts and bruises."

In the post, he said he was knocked unconscious on the floor and when the bouncers were told to stop attacking him, they wouldn't.

"I didn't ever think I would go into my home town Manchester where I spend a lot of weekends enjoying myself to be beaten up by bouncers, in a well-known gay bar," he wrote.

The nightclub where the alleged incident happened posted a statement on Facebook on Monday.

"We are aware and deeply shocked by the incident that happened the morning of Saturday 22nd and we are working directly with police to resolve this," Bloom wrote. "We take allegations such as this very seriously."

The staffers accused of attacking Gordon have been suspended, according to the statement.

"We do not and won't ever tolerate violence of any kind," the club wrote.

The case is just the latest in the continued growth of anti-LGBTQ+ violence in the U.K.

Data from Vice World News showed a 210 percent increase in homophobic hate crimes from 2014 to 2021. In the same period, an increase of 332 percent was seen in transphobic hate crimes.

The outlet reports that there were around 6,300 reports of hate crimes based on sexuality in 2014-2015 -- the same period same-sex marriage became legal in the U.K. The number was almost 20,000 in 2020-2021. For transphobic hate crimes, there were about 600 reported in 2014-2015 and 2,600 in 2020-2021.