People are weird, so when they view someone as different they may go out of their way to hurt them. Even if you didn’t do anything. From a psychological perspective, I’ve always wondered what goes through their heads when they do stuff like that.
If it makes you feel better, let me share my experience of something that’s happened recently.
I stood up to a homophobic boy in my class and I knew afterwards he would bully me a lot, but it wasn’t until Thursday (I stood up to him on Tuesday) that not only did he start making fun of me, which btw I’m not particularly sensitive to insults which is a skill ig, but I started getting terrified when not only he was throwing stuff at me during class but 5 other people kind of teamed up to do it at me. And they did it for the ENTIRE day. It’s Sunday for me, and school is tomorrow. I’m scared, but I know if it happens again my parents will take it seriously.