New York City -- universal beacon for gays and lesbians, right? Maybe, but ask some people how safe they feel on the streets, and they'll say, not very. Especially transgender women of color, who speak of constant harassment, threats and actual violence. 

In this latest episode of Micropolis, we spend time with Daisey Lopez, a transgender woman in Queens who's learned to kick her assailants' collective asses. 

Then we hear from Sempai Elena, THE self-defense instructor for New York sex workers. Here's 3 tips she gives her students, in the event they're in a car with a dangerous or violent john:

1. Keep the window cracked a little, early on, in case you need to kick it out
2. Even more dramatic is the back roll: "If you put your back up against the passenger door and started kicking [the john] with both feet, especially for these girls who are wearing heels: kick kick kick kick kick, open the door and back roll out. It seems very dramatic, but it can work."
3. When a quick escape isn't an option: "Can you gouge out an eye, can you crush a trachea? If somebody’s trying to choke you there’s not a lot of room for negotiation, because you’re going to become unconscious very, very quickly. So you have to bypass that fear and extricate yourself from that situation."

Listen to the Micropolis segment, above.

From a study by the Community Service Society of New York:

Roughly 17 percent of young Puerto Rican men were not in school, employed or looking for work, compared with 9 percent of Dominicans and 8 percent of Mexicans. Of those Latinos born in the United States, only 55 percent of Puerto Rican youth were enrolled in school, compared with 68 percent of Dominicans and 67 percent of Mexicans. Regardless of birthplace, about 33 percent of Puerto Rican families lived below the poverty line, compared with 29 percent of Dominicans and 27 percent of Mexicans. [NYT]

Elsewhere in the study:

• Latino youth are largely English-speaking. Most Latino youth were born in New York City, and an overwhelming share (85 percent) speaks English well or very well. Among large Latino groups, only Mexicans, who are just 13 percent of the city’s Latino youth population, have a high share of immigrants and a low share of English speakers.
• A greater percentage of Latino youth live in poor and near-poor households than any other racial group. Fifty-six percent of Latino young people live in households with incomes less than 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).
• As an overall share of the entire population, Hispanics are the second-largest racial/ethnic group in New York City.  With 2,290,007 individuals, they make up 27.6 percent of the entire city population, second behind whites, who are the largest racial group at 35.6 percent.

Last week, the Queens D.A. sent out a release about the conviction of 18-year-old Harpreet Singh, of Maspeth. The conviction followed a seriously disturbing incident: Singh had gotten in touch with a 16-year-old girl on MySpace, at first asking her for head-and-shoulder photos of herself, then asking her to send progressively more revealing images, including, finally, shots of herself nude.

Eventually (on June 23, 2008), Singh started blackmailing the girl, saying he'd post the nude photos online and send them to his friends if she refused to have sex with him. She agreed to his demand, and the next day, when she arrived at the home of his friends, he raped her, after which his friends -- Norman Gondal, Anjam Shahzad, Vikgram Singh and an unnamed juvenile -- took turns with her.

"That afternoon," the press release reads, "the girl returned home distraught and, locking herself in the bathroom, ingested medicine. She then attempted to tie a cord around her neck. Fortunately, her mother arrived home and called 911."

The thing that stood out to me initially was the fact that the defendants appeared to be South Asian. I can't remember hearing of another incident this brutal being committed by a group of young desis.

But who is the victim? Is she Indian or Pakistani as well?

We'll probably never know, but over the weekend I bumped into Purvi Shah, who formerly headed Sakhi for South Asian Women, a New York-based group that deals with domestic violence. We talked about the incident, and wondered what prompted this young, terrified woman to walk into the lion's den that day. We couldn't help but think she was even more scared of letting her community find out about her photos.

I asked Purvi to share her thoughts. Here's what she had to say:

While we cannot be certain the survivor of this horrific sexual violence was of South Asian origin, it is clear that the perpetrators were drawing upon key issues in our community, including notions of honor and a girl's reputation as well as the difficulty of speaking to dating and threats or violence in a dating context.

Regardless of whether the survivor was South Asian, but especially if she is, this case behooves us as a community to work to ensure boys and men are not enabled to commit sexual violence. This case demands that we begin to speak more openly to sexual harassment and sexual violence while starting conversations about healthy sexuality and healthy relationships so that young girls need not feel fear or family and community judgment. Most importantly, this survivor should be saluted for taking the brave step of coming forward and pursuing justice. Now it is up to us to ensure we create communities where such a situation could never happen again.

FYI, Harpreet Singh now faces 25 years in prison.

Also read The Daily News: "Queens Creep Convicted of Organizing Teen Gang Rape"