…not just sometimes….

and i (at the advanced age of thirty) think there is a generational difference on both sides here. i’ve been snapped at by younger (radical-identified) queers for being too confrontational while being harrassed on the street (in situations where we outnumbered the harrassers).

in the queer and genderdeviant (i’ll be ‘variant’ when they stop enforcing the ‘norm’ by killing folks) communities i came up in, we always gauged the appropriate response by our relative strength, because not pushing back encourages harrassment and assault.

folks a queer generation younger than me seem to have absorbed the opposite instinct: that fighting back is to be done rhetorically only, even when you’re in a position of strength and able to win. ‘course, had i but known that the folks i was walking with were such determined passivists, i’d never have assumed they had my back and wouldn’t've sassed back.

in some communities in memphis, apparently, that problem doesn’t exist. and it makes me proud to see that these folks seem (from this story, at least) to have made their point, made it well, and gotten away clean.

i’m waiting for the next installment of “when trans* attack” with bated breath…

Teenagers in their first job need to understand that the purpose of business is to make money and that anyone with money who wants service is to be treated like everyone else.