I came out of the closet when I was 14, but rarely have I held another man's hand in public. I'm a pragmatist. The feeling of cosy belonging might be delightful in theory, but as a gay person, it's not that simple – it necessitates a constant risk assessment of one's surroundings.

Which may explain why my hands are sweating. I'm standing outside The George and Dragon, a gay pub on east London's Hackney Road, waiting to meet a man who has agreed to walk hand in hand with me. You might think that these days people would barely notice. But things have changed. We're in the midst of a new wave of anti-gay hate crimes: since April there has been a 14% rise nationwide in attacks on gay people. There were four homophobic murders in London last year; last week Ian Baynham died a fortnight after being attacked in Trafalgar Square. In summer mobs of youths besieged gay bars in east London. And, just a few metres from where I'm standing, a 21-year-old man was left paralysed last year after a gang stabbed him repeatedly. Gay people are getting scared. I'm scared.

The man I'm meeting is Dave Atkins, the mercifully tall and broad founder of A Day in Hand, an organisation dedicated to encouraging gay people to hold hands in public. "You have to go out and do it," he booms. "It's the only way things will change."

He grabs my hand. We pass an elderly woman who stares straight ahead. Next come a couple in their 30s with two young children. They seem incomprehensibly absorbed in what their toddler is doing. A man saunters by. He clocks our clasped hands before looking away. Was that a hostile look?

"Let's go up here," I say, leading Dave into the Boundary estate where those mobs are rumoured to have come from. We pass a group of youths. They appear to find their iPhones more compelling than the sight of two interlocked homosexuals. At Whitechapel market a pair of bargain hunters glance first at us, down at our hands, and back to the two-for-ones.

Then something shocking happens. We turn into a quiet side street. Dave and I are engrossed in our conversation. Suddenly I jolt with the realisation that I have forgotten we are holding hands. "That's the Holy Grail," says Dave, "being so comfortable you don't even think about it."

We head into the West End and provoke nothing more than a cursory glance. Our final destination is Trafalgar Square. Last month, Ian Baynham, 62, was kicked to death here. There's a din coming from somewhere – a man is on the first ridge of Nelson's column preaching the message of the 'Good Book'. "Let's climb up next to him!" I cry. The sight of a preacher on Nelson's column with two gay men holding hands next to him is starting to draw crowds. A lesbian couple spot us, scramble up and join our silent show of defiance. "The Lord will save you," says the preacher. He didn't save Ian Baynham, I think.

"I'm genuinely surprised," I tell Dave afterwards as we say our goodbyes. "I was expecting at least some nasty comments." "You see?" he replies, beaming.

But I know that today I was lucky; that at night things could have been different.