A prominent local physician sent an email to the Louisville Ballet announcing his displeasure with the advertisement from their latest show, Human Abstract. The message was sent in March of 2018 when the ballet first announced its new season. The doctor, who works for a major local research hospital, sent the email from his personal Gmail account.

The letter contains very strong homophobic language. You can read the full (names redacted) letter here.

Homophobia is not new in the ballet world. A dancer recently lost an opportunity from the Paris Opera Ballet due to his online homophobic rant.

Louisville Ballet officials released an open letter of support for the LGBT community in the LEO Weekly. When asked about the impetus for their open letter, Louisville Ballet Marketing Director Cherie Perez told WLKY, “We have a responsibility to tell these stories in an authentic way.”

“Louisville Ballet has long been the subject of numerous hateful homophobic emails and written letters. The difference is that we now live in a culture where we feel safe to stand in our truth, and our truth is this: we stand for love, acceptance, inclusion, and diversity.”

Though this particular letter was outrageous and from a person in a powerful position, it isn’t the only hate mail that the ballet has received — only an example of the worst. Here are a couple of other examples that have been received in the days since the Open Letter was released.

Arts Writing is Dead has not yet reached out to the physician. Since his email was sent to the ballet and not posted in an online forum, we have chosen not to use his name. We are sure that the public will find out soon enough. Also, we’re not in the habit of giving the “hateful” space to defend or clean up their hatred.

Since the open letter from the ballet was published in LEO Weekly — and despite the few extra hateful messages like those above and including phone messages calling the ballet “Homosexual Satanists” and asking that they send messages to “liberal democrats and not republicans like me” — the organization has received immense community support including from hometown hero and musical fave Jim James who shared this on his Instagram:

Please check back for a trio of editorials by the staff of AWiD about homophobia using this particular letter as a banner example of the types of messages sent.