Pixie Polite Says She Was Harassed & Threatened In Homophobic Incident

Former RuPaul’s Drag Race UK contestant Pixie Polite recently recounted a disturbing experience in which she says she was targeted and harassed by a bigot in London.

Pixie, whose given name is Mark James Dudley Wickens, described what happened in a Twitter thread last week. She unexpectedly found herself alone in an unfamiliar part of town due to an issue with public transportation, and was waiting at the bus stop in Kennington when she says a drunk middle-aged white man approached her.

“[He] tried to engage me in conversation, during which he called myself and others various slurs,” she wrote. “I made several attempts to move away, end the conversation, or outright tell him I did not want to talk to him & he became incredibly aggressive.”

She added that he “began to loom over” her at the bus stop and “his body & verbal language became incredibly confrontational,” which included him apparently making various death threats towards the performing and threatening to stab her with a whiskey bottle that he was carrying.

Fortunately, the man ultimately wound up leaving, and Pixie called an Uber and got to her destination safely.

Last year, VICEreported that the number of hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community had more than doubled in the UK over the course of five years. Pixie also mentioned “the Clapham stabbings” in her thread, referring to an apparent hate crime that took place outside of a London gay club earlier this month in which two men were stabbed in an unprovoked attack.

“I was lucky. Very lucky. But I can’t help but think how the situation could have ended differently,” Pixie continued. “Please be vigilant and protect yourselves. I was lucky this time. We shouldn’t have to be lucky. We should just be able to live.”