That's why a group of determined young gay men created their own security force, Q-Patrol, working together to keep each other safe during a dangerous time.
It started in 1991 in Houston, Texas.
Stephen Tompkins and Mark Gartner were in their thirties.
"It was illegal for men to dance together, and any kind of behavior could trigger this kind of raid," Tompkins said.
"They would charge you with public lewdness-- dancing-- and I got arrested once," Gartner added.
Then came the murder of Paul Broussard.
While walking home from a bar in Montrose, the center of Houston's gay community, the 27-year-old banker was jumped by a group of teenagers and young adults.
He was stabbed with a pocket knife, kicked with steel-toed boots, and repeatedly beaten with two-by-fours embedded with nails.
Even after police were called, an ambulance didn't come for hours.
After emergency surgery, Broussard was pronounced dead.
"Okay, we've got to take a stand. Stephen and I had been involved in a number of neighborhood patrols in our neighborhood in southeast Houston," Gartner said. "We knew something about it, so we were the first to raise our hands and say we kind of know how to put this together."
"We know that we needed maybe some people on foot, foot patrols, maybe some people on bicycles, maybe in cars, and communicate with walkie-talkies," Gartner said.
"And be well marked, so t-shirts, cars with magnetic signs," Tompkins added.
"We would find out where that license plate was registered to, and we would send a postcard," Gartner said. "'Dear Mom or Dad, the driver of this car was seen harassing gay people in the Montrose area, and we want to let you know we know we know who you are, we know where you live, and we are aware of what's going on.' We got a lot of hate mail back from dads saying, 'I'm proud of my son.'"
"The important thing is that they knew we knew who they were, where they were if anything happened," Tompkins added.
"It was dangerous, but it was exciting. That's part of what made it fun," Gartner said.
"Our good friend, Brian Bradley, got into the young men's faces and said, 'You're going to jail, and they're going to call you Maria.' The boy started crying. That was effective," Tompkins laughed.
"That was when we first started getting the police on our side. Up until then, they were like, 'Yeah, y'all got beat up again, y'all probably deserved it.' That was the attitude we got," Gartner explained.
By the mid-90s, Q-Patrol started to lose members.
"It just kind of faded out," Gartner said, "In a very positive way because people felt safe. Did you know three years after we did Q-Patrol... the police department, at their hiring event at a gay pride event, had a booth for hiring?"
But progress is complicated.
In recent years, hate crimes have been up, and survey after survey shows they are severely underreported.
Here in Texas, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed more anti-transgender legislation in its last session than ever before.
"When I moved to Montrose in '97, the Q-Patrol was a thing. I remember watching them walk on the streets. I remember feeling safer. So, I wanted to do what I can to make this happen again so that we can look out for ourselves," Ethan Michelle Ganz explained.
Ganz is now a volunteer for the new, revived Q-Patrol.
Members don't patrol the streets as often but are called out as support for protests and other LGBTQ+ gatherings.
They encourage everybody to participate in self-defense and de-escalation training.
"We're not trying harm people. We're trying to protect ourselves," explained Andrew Degar, the co-founder of Third Ward Jui Jitsu, a non-profit group that leads some self-defense training. "That can be done with words, that can be done with sleight actions, different levels before it needs to get to a rougher approach."
"Sometimes you don't need to know about anything. You just gotta show up," Ganz said. "That matters more than anything because they see that effort. So many people have so much apathy about so many things, so they just stand around like bystanders, but when you show up, and you show you care, that matters and that builds real relationships."
Tompkins and Gartner are both retired from their jobs and daily volunteerism.
For them, the re-emergence of Q-Patrol is both bitter and sweet.
"I think that in large part was due to some of the changes we initiated, so I'm very proud of that," Gartner said. "But, your other question: Is there more to do? Yes. There's always more to do," Gartner said.
It's a new generation of activism inspired by the work of the past.
For more on this story, follow Pooja Lodhia on Facebook,X and Instagram.