sign o' the times

[sistawendy]

The scene: drinks with co-workers & a few significant others after an all hands meeting. I had steered the conversation to matters queer, as I do so often. Co-worker B's girlfriend L, who can't be a day over 28, expressed surprise that violence against queers happens.

Me: Oh, yeah. Queer bashing is a thing. I have a friend up in Vancouver who's walking around with a reconstructed face.
L: O.O

On the one hand, it's good that violence against queers is becoming rare infrequent and socially unacceptable enough that some straights don't know it's going on. On the other, it's still a goddamn problem, especially for trans people, and it disturbs me to find out straights might be starting to think that everything's hunky dory.

Comments

[maellenkleth]

Thank you. ^_^

I must fairly observe, that six months of reconstructive work in Japan in the early 80s was my first (and only good) experience with Krazy Glue in and around my body.

Darling Spouse (who knows me in intimate detail, of course) occasionally refers to me by the pet name of Origami Girl. :)

Edit to add: I definitely possess existence privilege (my chosen term for that) and have done so ever since '82 and said long round of facial repairs. All the same, I still experience that cold chilling fear when facing packs of young men walking together. Just now, on the peaceable sidewalks of a university precinct in New England, walking up to and past a group of six young men, all of frat-boy age, wondering quietly to myself "what can I do to escape if this goes sideways?". I took the Lady Beware course. I hold its lessons close to my heart (and my house-keys close in my hand).

Sigh.

[tmfkan64.livejournal.com]

I think, that when it comes to many types of discrimination (sexual, racial, etc.) we are fighting the modern day equivalent of the Battle of New Orleans. The war is over, the forces of good have won, and there are only a few mopping up operations left.

That said, if you found yourself in the middle of the Battle of New Orleans, you could easily find yourself just as dead as if the war *wasn't* over...

So it's better. But it's not *quite* over.