I have often struggled with my beliefs since then, with the "who keeps us safe? We keep us safe" mantras. Because I didn't see it. Because I streamed knowing 50,000 people were watching. Knowing that my wife was watching.
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Because no one showed up. I hadn't planned anything. I was surprised even to see the students. I thought I'd just be watching Richard Spencer give a speech. But we got surrounded and I realized that was it.
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There weren't a lot of faces I knew in that crowd. It was terrifyingly isolating. To see almost no one....
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I've watched my stream dozens of times since then. I listened to the hate I got. "Are you XX or XY?" "is that an open wound between your legs?" "you're not even a real woman"
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There was someone next to me. I still don't know who he is. He wore a PBS shirt. You know what hate he got? "PBS is fucking dead, yo"
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If you're cis, if you haven't experienced anti-trans violence, if you haven't studied our history, if you haven't wept over the memorial at Bebelplatz as I have, you don't understand how that's different.
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And so while hundreds of people, including many of my friends, had refuge, security, and shelter in the church, I saw exactly the face of cleansing violence. The church folks held onto their faith. I lost mine that night.
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I lost all belief that anyone--state or antifascist--would be not just able, but willing to keep me safe.
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So it means something to hear someone, anyone, admit that they let us down that night. I still don't believe anyone has the genuine will to keep me safe. But maybe I can be willing to start the conversations again.
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The revelations in the Discord logs that show how specifically I was targeted, and how violently, and how it was largely BECAUSE I was trans, tell me that we're still a long way from reaching that point.
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Those conversations still haven't been had. Not locally, not broadly not anywhere.
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A failure for whom?
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for antifascists
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Despite my having been in both the street brawl and the intersection on A12, A11 has been a lot harder for me personally to deal with emotionally.
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For me, the targeted antisemitism is part of what made it bad. Unlike with the targeted transmisogyny you got, I wasn't previously known individually to them, but the feeling you described in your thread of genocidal violence, aimed at you specifically, resonates.
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As a former white nationalist looking at Charlottesville, i could have told you that it was a failure. Instead of normalizing and spreading the ideology which would have been a win... instead it turned many that were sympathetic away. Basically the alt right screwed themselves.
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I’ve seen that take before, from a couple places. Basically the Alt-Reich (as I like to call them) showed their hand too early in Charlottesville. Although two weeks later the media was hyperventilating over “Antifa/leftist violence.” Sigh.
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My relationship with antifa has been rocky over the years.. but in general they are the less violent ones.
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Less violent, as in mass murdering no one on a regular basis.
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Yep. They tend to be way more mouthy than violent. Sorry.. I couldn't resist. lol In all seriousness.. other than a few groups over the years, I have no issues with most antifa.
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