Melania Geymonat says the gang made sexual gestures and demanded that the two women kiss before carrying out the assault.
A fifth teenager has been arrested in connection with the violent attack on a gay couple on a bus in London.
Melania Geymonat, 28, from Uruguay, and her American girlfriend Chris were on a night bus heading home to Camden, north London, on 30 May when a group men started to make lewd comments and asked them to kiss.
The women were then attacked and punched several times before the assailants ran off the bus.
Four males, aged 15 to 18, have already been arrested on suspicion of robbery and aggravated grievous bodily harm.
They remain in custody at separate London police stations for questioning.
Investigators have now said a fifth suspect aged 16 has been detained on suspicion of robbery and aggravated burglary
In a Facebook post, Ms Geymonat, who lives in Bishop’s Stortford in Essex, said the pair had been sitting on the top deck of a double-decker bus and there appeared to be no one else around when the incident happened.
Melania Geymonat shared a photograph of herself and her girlfriend Chris covered in blood after they were reportedly set upon by a group of “at least four men” on May 30.
“We must have kissed or something because these guys came after us,” Geymonat wrote on Facebook on Wednesday (June 5).
“I don’t remember if they were already there or if they got on after us.
“They started behaving like hooligans, demanding that we kissed so they could enjoy watching, calling us ‘lesbians’ and describing sexual positions.”
Woman ‘beaten up by three men’ on London bus
Geymonat said that she and her girlfriend tried to appease the men with jokes.
“The next thing I know is that Chris is in the middle of the bus fighting with them,” she wrote.
“On an impulse, I went over there only to find her face bleeding and three of them beating her up. The next thing I know is I’m being punched.
“I went over there only to find her face bleeding and three of them beating her up.”
—Melania Geymonat
“I went over there only to find her face bleeding and three of them beating her up.”
Geymonat, whose Facebook profile shows her working as airline cabin crew, said that she has been unable to return to work since the incident which has left her with a suspected broken nose.
“What upsets me the most is that violence has become a common thing,” she wrote.
“I’m tired of being taken as a sexual object, of finding out that these situations are usual, of gay friends who were beaten up just because.
“I’m tired of being taken as a sexual object.”
—Melania Geymonat
“We have to endure verbal harassment and chauvinist, misogynistic and homophobic violence because when you stand up for yourself s**t like this happens.”
Homophobic hate crime on the rise
There were more than 11,500 reported hate crimes in England and Wales in 2017-18. This is a 27 percent increase on the previous year, which officials attribute to more people coming forward as victims of crime.
In London, homophobic hate crime has been on the rise since the start of the year.
There were 243 reported incidents in April 2019, the highest number since July 2018.
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