mfb wrote: "a guy might also beat you into the gutter for having pointy ears, or tusks, or using magic, or worshipping the wrong god, or for not being gay, or for being a male, or for not recycling, or for shopping in the Renraku Arcology mall on the wrong Christmas."
Now that's the Shadowrun I love: lots of overlapping and interplaying subcultures, many of them interacting with "us vs. them" violence. Some of the subcultures come from traits you are born/raised with and share with your parents (human child of human parents, Catholics raising their children Catholics, etc.), some from traits that you don't share (human child of elven parents, Awakened child of mundanes), some traits you chose (Pink Mohawk).
I'm a native San Franciscan. There are some "out" gays, bis and lesbians in more or less every neighborhood, and there are also two distinct, separate queer-subculture neighborhoods. One of them is low-rent and scruffy and mixed with lots of hetero porn biz, and the other is more where you'd find bookstores with lots of books about the philosophy of sexuality (without pictures), fancy cafes, stores with gay-humor T-shirts, etc. My best friend is an instructor in the Triangle Martial Arts Association, which was founded after the death of Matt Shepherd; he's straight as an arrow, he just happens to like their teaching style... and their emphasis on self-defense skills. (Triangle as in Pink Triangle, the marker used by the Third Reich, equivalent to the yellow 6-pointed star that Jews had to wear.)
The annual Pride Parade is partly a reminder that we got some rights and accceptance, with a long way to go yet, and we got that partly by being willing to fight for it, physically at Stonewall and legally with ongoing efforts, and that some of us have suffered or sacrificed in those fights. I envision a Sixth World in which that hasn't been forgotten... no more than any other group forgets that it's been marginalized or attacked. There's almost zero anti-Irish prejudice here now, I've never experienced it personally (at least not openly), but my family remembers the first generation of immigrants seeing signs "Help Wanted, no Irish need apply", and when I travel to London, I'm mentally prepared for airport security to monitor me more closely as soon as they notice my Irish family name. (And hey, I gotta be fair, I may well have Irish ancestors who raided England, burning villages and taking slaves.)