Local queer website QPDX has posted an interesting account of getting heckled outside Gaycation, one of Holocene‘s most popular gay dance nights, for being trans.
The short story of the heated interaction is by Nik Rapier. Check it out:
We were standing outside Holocene, cooling down from that overheated dance floor, when you reeled out the door, steps unsteady and eyes full of malice. After looking our little group over, you apparently decided that we didn’t pass your definition of acceptable gender presentations, because you stopped right in front of us and let fly some of the more transphobic comments I’ve heard in a drunken slur.
“Pick a fucking gender,” you said, “pick a fucking gender! And fucking stick with it!”
Dramatically grabbing your crotch, you graphically demonstrated the depth of your conviction. “Penis!” Pointing to each of us in turn, you emphatically blurted “Vagina!” and then grabbed your crotch again, yelling “Penis! Fucking pick a gender!”
With this charming display of transphobic pyrotechnics, you rather effectively gained the attention of not only my group but also the entire line waiting to get into the Holocene, startling us into silence. You finally reeled off down the street, a drunken fag in women’s shoes, a small-minded and fearful man. And I know what you’re afraid of: you’re afraid of me. You’re terrified of me — a queer, genderqueer transman who doesn’t often pass, who is comfortable in gay and queer spaces, and who comes equipped with a cunt. Well guess what? I come with a penis, too. Several, in fact, varying in length, width, and color depending on the preference of those I am intimate with.
I know you’re threatened, scared, and act hateful because of it, but it really makes me wonder what kind of internalized homophobia you must live with on a daily basis. Are you even remotely happy in your life? Do you ever genuinely enjoy life without thinking about how you have to live up to someone else’s notions of what is socially acceptable? Do you ever go out and just dance without drinking, just letting the music lift you up, free you, let you breathe and be? Are you always so desperately unhappy?
It’s a funny thing: I’ve lived all up and down the west side of this country and the only place where I have consistently met with queer- and trans-phobia is Portland. I’ve lived here for the better part of six years now, and in that time I’ve been harassed on street corners and walking down the street just for being who I am and looking the way I do.
Read the rest of the whole story over at QPDX.
Anytime I read something with the word “cisgendered” in it, I just ignore everything else. That’s pretty much the stupidest thing to come out of the trans community since that whole xe/ze pronoun debacle. It sucks that you got yelled at by a drunk guy. But hey! Guess what? Everyone gets yelled at by drunk guys. You’re not special.
Graham, why don’t you drink some water and go sleep it off.
So what did you think about the above snipped from the linked post (since it doesn’t use the word “cisgendered”)? When you read it, decided it was something that interested you and clicked through, and *then* read the word, did you retroactively ignore everything you had already read?
Or did you just comment here in order to preemptively antagonize people?
@eldepeche: You’re creating a false dichotomy. Maybe I can ignore the mediocre arguments being put forth by this oh-so-aggreived tranny-activist AND pre-emptively antagonize people. But this little gem from the tirade stood out as awesome-sauce; describing the drunk-yeller as “a drunken fag in women’s shoes.” Score one for Team WTF!
Drunk people are drunk. No news there. If he had called her short, would anyone have bothered to write this up as a ‘horrifying example of sizeist discrimination and heightphobia?’
I wish the Merc would do a article on “The Different Kinds of Genders That There Are.”
And in that article, they could cover both of them.
I’ll be sure to tell everyone what you think about their lives, Reymont, I’m sure they’ll be very interested to know.
I’m a regular looking straight dude and I get harassed by drunks all the time. I usually assume it’s because they’re drunk, not because of me. What is the point of the post?
It’s not so much about the dude being drunk, it’s about the idea of the ‘queer community’ and how this kinda blows a hole through it.
This is an interesting post for a lot of us to read; if you find it useless, move on.
Mel — how does one drunk asshole “blow a hole” through Portland’s “queer community?”
Was it really on such shaky ground?