ProTip: Do Not Read This If You Don't Want To Learn About A Time I Was Sexually Assaulted

It’s come to light that I may, in the privacy of my home or in the company of friends, hate giggly white straight girls.

Those who know me can attest that I am a bastion of tolerance. This, I trust, speaks to my ability to make payments on time.

Alas, the time has come to be honest with you fine people so that I may take those first steps towards tolerance forgiveness.

Because I do hate giggly white straight girls. Especially those who come to my community’s events, get drunk, use words that don’t belong to them, and make a skirt out of a rainbow flag that would best be used hanging over some queer youth’s wall to instill in them a sense of pride and hope when shit gets tough, or even, GASP, a community safe space that can allow people like the aforementioned queer youth know  there is support and perhaps even a hot meal within their doors.

if I could, I’d throw every giggly straight white girl I found out of Pride.

And justified as I may be in doing so, I must attest there is a deep-seated anguish and loathing that motivates such hate.

For you see.

I was sexually assaulted by a straight girl at Phoenix Pride 2009.

By a straight-identified white girl.

In front of classmates, friends, and strangers.

And I haven’t talked about it, like, at all, until now.

So.

It was 2009. As we’ve established.

I had just come out as trans. I was making the most of it.

I marched in the parade with the Spectrum @ ASU West contingent. Hey guys!

It was great. And awful. I wasn’t passing back then. At all. I didn’t care then. Still don’t. But it made seeing classmates and professors and such who hadn’t gotten the memo that I’d been living the last 3-4 months as a woman nervous. And that made me nervous.

Also, I was asked to hold and wave the rainbow flag for the club. I realized, just as we went onto the street, that I had never seen the rainbow flag displayed width-wise, and didn’t know which color was supposed to be on top, and several grown-ups and old guards had to be consulted for this information.

Judge me. Judge me ’til I love you.

Anyway.

It was hot. Triple digits.

To illustrate how my makeup (this was before laser hair removal, so I had about two layers of foundation on) looked halfway through the parade, I was going to insert a photo of melted faces from Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I figured I’m about to talk about being sexually assaulted in public.

Let’s not get dramatic.

Anyway.

At the entrance to the Pride festivities. Half-melted. sunburned and sore, I waited in line to pay my admission fee. I looked ridiculous, my then-crush had pointed out how poorly my makeup hid the fact that I had facial hair, and I my fundie shitbag neighbors had pointed me out and shouted “AIN’T THAT THE F-G THAT LIVES NEXT TO US?” I was looking forward to having my frozen lemonade, watching some ladies kiss each other, and going home to be called my birth name.

She approached us. Introduced herself. Oh yeah, from that one class. I remember you. Sorta.

She was straight. But she loved to hang out with all the gheyz.

Was I with anyone?

Yeah, my friends, the happy gay couple behind me.

A boyfriend? No. I don’t swing that way.

Oh well.

I could be her boyfriend today.

And that’s when she grabbed my found art.

Kay, real quick, guise.

Don’t call it my junk.

I don’t mind when you refer to your genitals that way, you have every right to do it.

But don’t, when referring to my genitals, refer to it as “junk”.

It is not junk.

It’s not what I would have picked out, if I was there to buy it.

But just because you got a Zune instead of an iPod does not make it “junk”.

You can call it my found art. My stick shaft. Factory standard equipment.

I’ll even take cock or penis.

But do not call it junk.

Anyway.

She’s pulled me out of my panties.

And I didn’t think.

I hit her.

Or rather, pushed her off of me.

With the back of my hand.

But I’m sure if you had taken a picture at that moment, it would have looked like I backhanded a woman in public.

Nobody noticed.

She was drunk.

At 2 in the afternoon.

Drunk people in Arizona are almost invisible. They’re everywhere.

She stumbled off.

And I was like : /

For a couple days.

I haven’t shaved my bush since.

I’ve come to like it now. It’s like a playful game of hide and seek down there.

Like I care if you know. You’re not going to fuck me. Everyone who reads this blog realizes I’m too much for them.

This blog is like a crazybitchnomicon.

Anyway.

Please. Before you even go there.

Let me save you the trip.

I am not suggesting that giggly straight girls are gonna come to our Pride events and start touching us all inappropriately.

I do not think all giggly straight girls are rapists.

You may choose to believe that. Because it fits your narrative of the uppity crybaby tranny who just can’t let you have a good time.

And I’m not gonna take that dream away from you.

Queers are not immune from doing Bad Shit to each other.

I have a queer abuser. You may, too.

But this drunk, giggly straight girl, who admittedly was only there for the spectacle of it, did not belong at Pride.

Not because she was giggly and straight, but because she is the kind of person Pride was created to keep people safe from.

Cis straight people who other us, who put us down, who color us circus attractions and hurt us.

They come to every Pride. Every year. In droves.

They get drunk. They call us names. They badtouch us.

And that is not okay.

But they think it is okay, because we have allowed them to believe they are entitled to our space.

That we are somehow discriminating against them by not letting them be jagoffs at our party.

And when you put a cis straight people as Grand Marshalls, it only encourages this behavior. It tells them they’re right to believe that shit.

I’ll tell you what.

Mark my words.

If you and I comb the internet after Pride.

Like, really go through it.

That means tumblr, wordpress, facebook and twitter.

AND CAN’T FIND ONE INSTANCE OF A TRANS PERSON, QUEER PERSON OF COLOR OR QUEER WOMAN BEING MOCKED, ASSAULTED, OR OTHERWISE BULLIED BY AN ATTENDEE OF PRIDE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE TO “SUPPORT THE COMMUNITY”.

I will not only write an email of thanks to the organizers of Pride for choosing Sarah Silverman as a Grand Marshall.

But I will write a check equal to my “Tattoo Fund” to any mainstream run-by-cis-white-guys LGBT organization of your choice.

And never blog about privilege and erasure ever again.

Don’t question my pragmatism.

Minding and demanding the safety of my community is the most pragmatic, most realistic activity I will ever commit myself to.

And I promise you this.

If/when you go to Pride™.

And some giggly straight girl grabs you inappropriately.

Some dickbutt in an HRC shirt asks you what your “real name” is.

The local token “queer” sports team aggressively recruits you but turns you away when they find you’re trans.

A drunk guy in a faded Old Navy t-shirt asks if he can watch you and your girlfriend have sex.

You betcha bottom dollar. This cisphobe will be on your side.

I want you to be safe. I want us all to be safe.

And right now, letting giggly straight girls feel like they have some inherent right to come and make assholes of themselves in our space is one of many things I identify as “not safe“.

Kay.

Ramen’s ready.

As you were.

p.s. I love you, Sarah Silverman, I really liked your book, I have all your comedy shows and seasons of your show (none of which was purchased legally), and have “Jesus Is Magic” in my Spotify playlist titled “Music In The Key of Cheer Me Up”. <3