My Liverpool Pride was Violent this year
The fight is real and it continues
(Originally published 24th June 2021 in Prism & Pen)
Today, in my beautiful city of Liverpool, we marched. We marched because this Pride month has been marked by a spate of hate crimes against queers.
Fifty five years after Comptons, more than half a century since Stonewall, the fight remains real. A clear and present danger to queers of any stripe on the streets of an otherwise progressive and proud city.
I was there. I have skin in the game. My own.
Last week was the worst week I've experienced since coming out.
On Saturday my trans friend and I were attacked on a train from Manchester back to Liverpool. We got the police involved but we had to stop the men involved from leaving the train before the final stop where they were arrested. Two older trans women against two much younger, drunken men. Lovely.
On Tuesday it was another bunch of men at a pub restaurant. For them it was simply hilarious to see a trans woman go to get condiments. And when I stopped to face them it escalated. Again it was myself and that same friend. The difference this time was us being outnumbered three to one. Doormen got involved. Eventually. The threats flowed as freely as ever.
In Thursday I was heading home at midnight after a friendly night in my queer local when a bunch of men in car pulled over and harassed me. Being in a pedestrianised area meant they weren't able to follow me.
Then on Saturday morning at seven am at the bus stop after an all nighter (OK, so I've been partying hard of late). A guy beside me asked the time and when I obliged him he decided that would be a good time to tell me how his god hates gays. And trans people. Let's say I robustly defended my position.
These were all scary incidents, peppered with threats of violence and every variety of slur imaginable.
The first and third had started at simply sexist, misogynistic bullshit. Men thinking they have the right to push into private conversations or to harass a lone woman at night. They turned both homophobic and transphobic when they realised I wasn't cisgender.
It is, of course, no surprise to note that all my attackers were male. Not that I've not been attacked by women too in the past. But male aggression when in the company of similarly idiotic peers is an issue for women everywhere, whether cis or trans, gay or straight.
The attacks were horrible. And so many in so short a time left me shaken. Indeed some who know me have been surprised to see me upset.
But there's an aspect that's more troubling. The lack of support from any of the cisgender bystanders. Indeed one guy at the bus stop complained about ME arguing in my defence against a barrage of slurs and hate. That bus stop was packed. There were thirty to forty people nearby who said fuck all to my harasser.
Same at the pub.
Same on the train.
I don't doubt it would have been the same on the night I was alone.
Straight, cisgender people need to do better. It's as painfully simple as that. This world remains toxic to queer folk. And it's not good enough.
So Pride remains a protest. Figuratively and literally. I was so profoundly proud at the defiance of some damn many of my brothers, sisters, and non-binary siblings this afternoon.
We will not go quietly.
Hell no.
