sistawendy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistawendy) wrote2019-09-12 08:27 am
sistawendy) wrote2019-09-12 08:27 am
my 30th Seattleversary
Thirty years ago today, a beat-up Oldsmobile (Remember them?) station wagon rolled into Seattle from the south on I-5 and got off at Madison St. I was the sole occupant of that vehicle. It was the first time I'd ever been here.
I'd lived in big cities before as an intern, but this is the first place I've lived where I've encountered surprises cultural and natural, usually pleasant ones, on a regular basis. I hope that never stops. I didn't really learn to appreciate what was here until I got out of grad school - my reason for moving here - but I have absolutely no regrets about not leaving for, say, Silicon Valley.
For one thing, I lucked into the best place to transition on earth. The resources, the legal climate, and above all my support network here - the Small Army of Girlfriends in particular - provided me with what I believe to be a best-case scenario. Whenever I hear someone try to discourage anyone and everyone from moving here, I think of trans people in red states and how, if they can afford to live here, this is still a way better deal.
I just heard yesterday that the building occupied by Re-bar is for sale, which is likely to force it to either move or close. Re-bar, founded in 1990, has been in Seattle almost as long as I have. It's a venue beloved by queers, theater people, and anyone else who likes kinda gay, kinda goofy good times, which is anybody I would want to associate with. It's an institution.
And its threatened status is representative of what's happened to this city, repeatedly, for the last fifteen or twenty years. I could give you a list of places that are or have been in Re-bar's situation, but I don't want to go there; it would likely be incomplete anyway. Sure, all good things come to an end, but I don't see anything replacing them.
With Amazon powering the city's economy now, I guess the people running the city have decided that we don't need no culchah, at least not unless it's packaged and officially approved. But that too is a temporary state of affairs: I haven't been here long enough to remember the Boeing bust of the '70s, when the city nearly went the way of Detroit, but when I arrived Boeing still dominated the local economy and the bust was still fresh in everyone's memory. If Seattle becomes a bougie monoculture that's hostile to queers, POC, and anyone creative, as it's well on its way to doing, it will be poorly placed for the next inevitable downturn.
I'd lived in big cities before as an intern, but this is the first place I've lived where I've encountered surprises cultural and natural, usually pleasant ones, on a regular basis. I hope that never stops. I didn't really learn to appreciate what was here until I got out of grad school - my reason for moving here - but I have absolutely no regrets about not leaving for, say, Silicon Valley.
For one thing, I lucked into the best place to transition on earth. The resources, the legal climate, and above all my support network here - the Small Army of Girlfriends in particular - provided me with what I believe to be a best-case scenario. Whenever I hear someone try to discourage anyone and everyone from moving here, I think of trans people in red states and how, if they can afford to live here, this is still a way better deal.
I just heard yesterday that the building occupied by Re-bar is for sale, which is likely to force it to either move or close. Re-bar, founded in 1990, has been in Seattle almost as long as I have. It's a venue beloved by queers, theater people, and anyone else who likes kinda gay, kinda goofy good times, which is anybody I would want to associate with. It's an institution.
And its threatened status is representative of what's happened to this city, repeatedly, for the last fifteen or twenty years. I could give you a list of places that are or have been in Re-bar's situation, but I don't want to go there; it would likely be incomplete anyway. Sure, all good things come to an end, but I don't see anything replacing them.
With Amazon powering the city's economy now, I guess the people running the city have decided that we don't need no culchah, at least not unless it's packaged and officially approved. But that too is a temporary state of affairs: I haven't been here long enough to remember the Boeing bust of the '70s, when the city nearly went the way of Detroit, but when I arrived Boeing still dominated the local economy and the bust was still fresh in everyone's memory. If Seattle becomes a bougie monoculture that's hostile to queers, POC, and anyone creative, as it's well on its way to doing, it will be poorly placed for the next inevitable downturn.