another important thing abt terfs that isn’t really talked about is the fact that we can’t really make it an “us versus them” situation. not only is that a bad idea in most conflicts, but it can create biases about who we think is “terfy”. a lesbian you don’t like isn’t a terf. not all lesbians in general are terfs. a white cishet feminist isn’t inherently a terf. things like that

This is Why Queers Protest by Grace Piper

I am sitting in the Cinebar in West Salem watching a $6.50 matinee of “Rogue One” on the day that Carrie Fisher died and I am feeling heavy, I am holding back tears throughout most of the movie, not just for Carrie, but for me too. I remember being young and my whole family gathering on the couch in piles and we would stuff the VHS  in and watch in awe with a dialogue to follow. This is still common practice for us when we get together. Growing up, this made my first hero the bad ass herself, Leia Organa, who literally killed fascists, was a well trained activist and strategist, and really carried the rebellion (in my opinion more than Luke, but that’s a different article). As each new movie set comes out, we are presented with a femme doing the emotional labor of the movement (seriously though, Padme), as well as making the strides and helping us move on to restoring balance to the force (Thanks Jyn and probably Rey). I was inspired by their bravery, their tenacity, and most importantly, by their action. My youth connected me to Star Wars and to my activism. In watching “Rogue One,” I couldn’t help but cry because I could feel it, the way the film shows the growing fascist regime, the work they are doing to build the Death Star with the sole intent of destroying entire planets and wiping out entire groups of people-aliens-what have you. And I can’t help but feel like we are headed therein some way too. 

This cold year has housed a number of protests, particularly in Portland as well as nationally, and worldwide. State sanctioned violence against marginalized people is still rising (Huffington post reported that over 250 black people have been killed by police officers in 2016), world wide, transgender people are being murdered (click here to read about it), basic rights like if you can use a bathroom are still in question, the DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) is being unlawfully built despite being condemned by the Obama Administration late last year. And this is just what we can see. We know that people are being crushed by a violent system of oppression, that people are dying because they don’t have access to resources to survive. In the past couple of years, I have personally participated in various protests. At one point in time I had on a date where we went to a #DisarmPSU protest and debriefed afterwards over chai in a dirty coffee shop. I am not at every protest, but I believe in the change that they can create and I am cautious to criticize the ways in which marginalized people deal with their anger. Following the election, following the deaths of innocent people, following the massacre in Orlando, so many of us have found one another and called for action by taking action. In doing so, I have personally been asked “what does protesting even actually do?” “but why do they have to be violent?” or simply “protesting never works.” I am personally exhausted with this (by that I mean tired of being tokenized as a vocal QTPoC), but putting it in writing, sorting it through analysis, is how I can bring it to light, the reasons why queers protest.

We are not represented in the dominant paradigm. There are less than 10 out queer or trans (like every single possible LGBTQIA+ identity) representatives in congress. There are 535 total representative in the House and the Senate and there are seriously less than 10 queer and trans reps. I applaud the bravery it takes to be there and I applaud the bravery it takes to be outed and remain a minority in government work. Even though I feel for these people and I have so much tenderness for our little bit of representation, how can this handful of people possibly put our needs out there and get it through? How can those few people get ⅔ of the congress to believe us? In terms of statistics, it is really not probable. (Special shout out to these trans women who ran for office this year, y’all are amazing.) When traditional forms of change don’t work, we have to make our own means of change. This is why we protest.

Protests are a place in which the work of femmes can be recognized. In the academy, in government, in traditional forms of change or creations of knowledge, masculinity and men are celebrated. In protests, women and femmes carry us (kind of like how I mention that stuff about Star Wars), and particularly trans femmes and women of color. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major, Storme DeLarverie, the women leading the Women’s March following inauguration day, Molala, literally any of these women, I could go on. This kind of representation does not happen in traditional forms of change because money can’t be made unless someone is exploited, because white supremacist patriarchy is not powerful unless someone is suppressed, even when femmes do the work, men are often finding ways to masquerade it as their own. Femmes carry our world’s emotional labor and then still are not allowed in public domain, but in protesting, it is their domain.

Protest are on the cutting edge of a radical and progressive politic and that pushes the mainstream movement. They spread the word to the crevices of your town, of your country. To clarify, when I am discussing radicals, I do not mean TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists), I mean, as Angela Davis says “grasping things at the root.” Radicals are think deeper and search for the source of problems and of oppression. Liberals and often mainstream democrats are searching for the bandaid fix for the problem (like how do we make more people profit from capitalism, rather than how do we find a system that does not exploit people to create profit). What I mean is that radicals are so indepth and thorough in the think and activism, that they pave the way for new knowledge. Even when that new way of thinking does not catch on right away, it does eventually, it get’s adopted and employed in general progressive thought over time. Radical ideas pull us forward immediately and eventually.

#FunFact protests and rallies work. Here is a casual list of 7 protests that worked that I thought of off the top of my head in less than 2 minutes. In all of these, marginalized people unified, organized, planned an action (rally, civil disobedience, protest), and it accomplished one of their goals. The thing about protests is that a goal can be to completely overthrow a system, it can be to create a policy change, and it can also be to spread a message. These people were loud and someone listened. I want to add that I include violent protests/riots in this list because they have been effective forms of activism. Like I said earlier, I am cautious to critique the ways in which marginalized people chose to voice their anger, such as through destruction of property, when mass amounts of people are being overtly and covertly murdered in a dominant paradigm of normalized violence and state sanctioned violence (like Banana Republic probably made it just fine with a cracked window, y’all).

There are people in our country and worldwide who feel completely isolated, invisible, or unheard. There are people who do not have a wealth of community to lean back on. There are people who rely on the internet or the news to find any source of support. If you were not aware, since the election of Donald Trump, calls and texts on all major suicide hotlines have reached all time highs, particularly for queer and trans people. As queer and trans people, we often feel scared, and it is recent events (also such as HB2), that are affecting our safety in a multidimensional way. I do not know everything about what is going on for these people, but I do know that having community and support can make a person feel safer. When I do not know what to do, I reach out for community, and the creation of rallies and protests can create a community among the people who are there, but I can’t help but hope there is someone who needed it sees it too on the news or online somewhere. I can’t help but hope that the rural queers, that the black and brown kids, that the children of immigrants, that anyone who is afraid can see that there are thousands of people there for them, that are rooting for them, that are fighting for them, that hear them. That is why I protest. I am scared, but I am still there, for me and for them.

Following watching “Rogue One,” my family went home and put in “A New Hope” and began playing card games. “A New Hope” is pretty immediate after “Rogue One” and leads us into the bravery and strength of taking down the Empire’s oppressive government system in the “Star Wars” universe. As I watched the badass Leia herself take Luke’s blaster following his terrible rescue, she shoots open the vent to the garbage chute, and says to Han, “somebody’s got to save our skins,” I got a text from a friend that said “be like Leia in 2017. Fight on the front lines. Strangle fascists with the chains they would have you wear. Be a motherfuckin’ general.”

Next month keep an eye out for a follow up to this article as I head out to Washington DC to participate in the Women’s March on Washington following the inauguration of Donald Trump.

This piece was written by Grace Piper, a QTPoC Portlander with an interest in cheese and education.