From The Baltimore Sun, Jan. 14, 2017:
Anaclara Passalacqua is a transgender individual who says a group of teenage boys "kicked me in the face and stole my cellphone" two weeks ago at Greenmount and North avenues. Jon Kmetz is a gay man who he says he was chased by skinheads several years ago when he was a teenager.
The two were among 20 people learning Saturday how to immobilize attackers — by poking eyes, jabbing throats with ballpoint pens and other self-defense techniques — in a safety class for the LGBT community in Mount Vernon.
Instructor Angie M. Tarighi, founder of the New Jersey-based Women's Self-Defense Institute, said she has had twice the usual number of calls for such classes from women's, Muslim and LGBT groups since the presidential election last November.
"Since the election, folks have been real freaked out," said Kate Bishop, education coordinator with Chase Brexton Health Care, which organized the class in Baltimore. Chase Brexton began as a clinic for gay men in the 1970s and still caters to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, though it has expanded services to others.
