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f3v3rw0lf · 7 years

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1/21/2017

100,000 people showed up in downtown portland today for the women’s march. it was fucking incredible-- for a while the streets were too packed to even march. i think my favorite cheer was “we will not go away, welcome to your first day”

there was a marching band, and thousands upon thousands of incredible signs. my housemates ditched me so i took the bus and everyone sitting near me wanted to look at my pins and patches and my sign (one side: support your sisters not just cis-sters. other side: queer goblins for women’s rights) and i ended up talking with a lovely older women in the back about college and debt and progress. everyone was so kind and excited and even though we got absolutely drenched, the atmosphere was positive. it was a celebration as much as a protest. it was so supportive (for the most part) and i am so glad i went.

there was also the knowledge of the history we were creating. in a hundred years (should our species survive that long) future generations will look back and they will see that we fought. they will see how angry we were, how much we wanted to survive, how badly we wanted to love and to be kind. i hope they will trust the personal accounts more than the bare-bones misinformation of the media. i hope they will admire our art and our dedication and our passion.

there was a little more that went on, in the personal sphere: kissing and getting lost and not being able to find my friends in the crowd. there were awkward interactions and sweet interactions. i got hugged by a lovely queer woman who liked my trans girl sign (it was a little bit popular, and i hope most of all that trans femme ladies saw it and i hope they felt a little bit safer). i danced my ass off in front of the band, of which there is definitely internet footage. (i am not looking for it; i don’t want to look at myself, i feel shitty enough occupying this corporeal form) the last song the band played was “i will survive”

there were also the bad parts-- Aru, Lloyd’s girl, getting separated from her group and being harassed by terfs at the march because she wasn’t “feminine” enough. i am so fucking angry. i can’t think of what else to say. i am furious and in pain and because i am myself, i’m angry for not somehow preventing it. im angry for not having more energy to argue with terfs and im angry at my own internalized transmisogny that makes me surprised it happened.

i’ve been feeling numb recently. i guess its normal in such different environments-- my body suspending my emotions until i’m safe enough to filter through them. i find the fear leaking back in, and even among all the pink and the solidarity and the music, i can’t forget that some of us will not survive the next few years. maybe all of us.

for example:

yesterday, inauguration day, we took to the streets. it wasn’t a sanctioned march-- i heard they tried to get permits and were refused, i also heard they don’t give a fuck about permits, i heard a lot of things. it started out as always-- talking a little longer than the crowd was prepared to sit for, and then out onto the streets. the cops have learned since the election day times, and they were out in full riot gear everywhere they didn’t want us to go, which was roughly everywhere. on the news sites, they’re saying protesters threw projectiles. i just want to say that the whole march, i didn’t see anything like that. there were legal observers all standing near the cops, people with cameras recording, but i didn’t see anything that could be construed as violence.

eventually, i guess they got tired of us marching. they forced us to go up toward pioneer square and then, once next to it, they told us our protest was unlawful and to disperse. unfortunately, they’d blocked off all the exits (the way we’d come was open, but everywhere else had lines of riot cops) and nobody was really ready to go. they used flash bangs and tear gas and pepper spray. i got to know what the phrase “snatch and grab” means.

we made the best of it. my heart swelled for every single marcher that night (even the white anarchists). bobby had a megaphone they kept using, to heckle the cops (”I’ll go home if you make out!” “give us some sloppy coppy” “just kiss each other!” were some notable shouts) to spread information, to attempt to find me (apparently a whole section of the crowd was on the lookout for me. once i was located, they reported their finding and the entire section cheered). after the cops declared the protest unlawful, they started a rousing round of “All Star” by Smash Mouth. i shared the chocolate chip cookies i’d made earlier (they were a little underdone and squished-- more slightly baked dough, but no one complained) and later received a delicious scone from some humans. everyone i interacted with was kind and strange and angry. it was clearly stranger, sharper, and more homegrown than today’s protest. more dangerous as well, but just as worth it.

not to say i’m completely happy-- i go back and forth with the anarchists. their actions put the more vulnerable members of our community at risk, and making a mess that pam the janitor is just going to have to clean up in the morning. some of them are so fucking shitty to working class people (Aru let us into her work so we could pee, some time around 8, and a crowd came past. they dragged one of her works dumpsters into the street, presumably to stop police following them. one of the store’s managers came out, because they’d only have to drag them back, and the one of the protesters mocked her.) it’s messier and some of the people are worse. in the days following the election i got into a screaming match with a few. i dont know if i trust the organizers of the event-- i want to, but we admittedly don’t know much about them. i hope i’m doing the right thing

i think we are. i think i am. i think i could be doing more-- i think we all could, and i think if i believe we’re doing enough, we’ll be losing. we have to walk the line of staying strong and striving for more, so we don’t wreck ourselves, but we don’t get complacent. i’m going to be honest, i love the graffiti, and i have some stencil or sticker ideas to look into. im going to keep writing, and im going to put angry words on my clothes and flowers on my vest and i am going to hold my friend’s hands in public and i am going to call my representatives and heckle them and i am going to sing at the riot police and i will participate in whatever marches or strikes or sit-ins or teach-ins i can. i will defend my family to the best of my ability, and i will try to forgive myself for my inevitable failures. i will keep myself strong and i will hold out my arms to pull as many people up as possible. dark days ahead, but i’m the monster who thrives in the dark.

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