A gay professional dancer was stabbed to death after vogueing with friends at a gas station in Brooklyn, New York, elevating concerns about a rise in violence against LGBTQ+ Americans.
O’Shae Sibley, a professional dancer and choreographer, was heading home with friends after a trip to the New Jersey Shore on Saturday night. The group stopped at the gas station around 11 p.m. and were vogueing to Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album before a separate group of men approached them.
“These people were like ‘We’re Muslim, I don’t want you dancing,’” an employee of the gas station recalled to Gothamist, adding: “The gay people, they were not trying to fight.”
The group began to call Sibley and his friends — who were shirtless and in bathing suits — names and gay slurs, telling them to stop dancing, according to The New York Times. Sibley began to argue with the men and was stabbed.
Otis Pena, one of his friends, tried to stop the bleeding before Sibley was taken to an area medical center, where he was pronounced dead.
“They killed O’Shae,” Pena said in a video posted to Facebook. “They killed my brother right in front of me. I’m covered in his blood.”
“They murdered him, because he was gay, because he stood up for his friends,” he added.
The NYPD said it is investigating the attack as a hate crime. No arrests have been made. CBS reported Monday that investigators have identified a suspect.
Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a New York state senator who is gay, said on Twitter Monday he was “heartbroken and enraged” to learn of Sibley’s death.
“Despite homophobes’ best efforts, gay joy is not crime,” he wrote. “Hate-fueled attacks are.”
Sibley, 28, was openly gay and had performed as part of an all-queer dance troupe at New York’s Lincoln Center. He studied at the Philadelphia Dance Co. and had moved to New York shortly before the pandemic, according to the Times.
“It was a senseless crime,” his aunt, Tondra Sibley, told the newspaper. “O’Shae has always been a peacemaker. All he wanted to do was dance.”
A report by the Anti-Defamation League and the GLAAD advocacy group documented hundreds of cases of assault, vandalism or harassment against LGBTQ people from June 2022 to April 2023, including mass murder, reflecting widespread bias. Over roughly the same period, hundreds of transphobic bills were introduced or passed in GOP-led states.