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RantI have received more violent threats in the past two weeks than in an entire year of stickering...and it's peaking people.
I've been putting up gender critical stickers around town for the past year or so. I started with Posie Parker's "adult human female" stickers, and when those got a bit expensive, I started making my own out of postal slips. My slogans are never violent, threatening, or hyperbolic. I make only verifiable statements of fact that I can stand by 100%. Some of my slogans:
I've gotten some snotty pushback in the past, but nothing I found really upsetting, just annoying. After Fred Sargeant was assaulted at a local Pride march last month, though, TRAs have gotten considerably more aggressive both online and irl. I added two new stickers to my repertoire:
And these two, more than any others, have touched one hell of a nerve. Here are some of the responses I've had sharpied onto these stickers in the past two weeks:
I have decided not to cover these up. Rather, I've made new stickers that say "violence is a feature, not a bug, of this movement -- J.K. Rowling" and pasted them next to the violent threats. It kind of feels like curating an art exhibit: "The Cluster-B AGP in His Natural Habitat". My commentary stickers are torn down almost immediately, but I've been replacing them every day.
These things are really upsetting and unsettling to read. No doubt about that. But what's really incredible, and turns this post from a rant to almost a rave, is that Fred Sargeant himself saw one of my "I stand with Fred Sargeant" stickers, shared it on Facebook, and got over 1,000 likes. I sent him a message identifying myself, and now I'm in regular correspondence with one of North America's OG gay icons. Not only that, but he's been sharing pictures of the violent threats to his considerable audience, and the response is uniformly horrified. Granted, most of his friends and followers are GC already, but it's only a matter of time before the general public starts to notice. The juxtaposition of an incredibly milquetoast statement and an unhinged violent reaction is too powerful to ignore.
EDIT: Thank you to everyone who's supported me! I've posted proof of the threats over in /o/TerfIsASlur. Check it out here -- could be good peaking material.
The Cross Dressers Wife by Dee A Levy
In The Curated Woods by Ute Heggen
Found these on Trans Widows Voices website.
Thank you! I will find both of these.
TransWidows Voices also features the stories of trans widows (mine among them).
Thank you--I read the stories there a while back--may be time to read them again. And thank you for sharing your story! That can't have been easy.
Writing and sharing my story was part of my healing. I also share my store in the upcoming film on transwidows by Vaishnavi Sundar, "Behind the Looking Glass."