It was a surprise that neither Kat (I will be using pseudonyms) nor I were invited to speak with you about Saturday before the meeting you had after this month’s QueerSmear. I assume that this was a mistake of yours and that you are interested in listening to the whole story of what took place at your party. I would like my letter to be read out loud in front of everyone in the QueerSmear group.
I was not there when the incident between Kat and Melbourne took place. I noticed, from a bit further away, that there was noise and movement going on. I approached to see what had happened. I found Kat upset. She told me that Melbourne had misgendered her at the bar. He called her ´boy´ in Dutch. Melbourne told her that he calls everyone like that and Kat left. Melbourne came back to find Kat. He narrated a different story this time: He hadn’t said ´boy´ before, but ´yo´. This, of course, was not received as an apology. On the contrary, it was a way to not accept his own mistake, and an action to put the blame on Kat’s ears that ¨misunderstood¨. The beer that Melbourne claims he brought as an apology was not (received as) a gift of good will, but as a medium to derail the topic and the truth. What followed, we all know.
A bunch of people were gathering around Kat and checking in with her. Melbourne had already gone to another room. Meanwhile, a guy, from the squat probably, approached Kat. I didn’t hear all that he was saying but he looked threatening and he kept misgendering Kat. To get an idea of the party environment for Kat: Constant misgendering and violent behaviours. Luckily, a person was able to guide this guy away.
At this point I thought that Kat deserved a calmer and more safe environment, somewhere without triggers, where the tension could be deescalated. At this moment, Mora from the organising team, came and said they would show us a place. We had no reason to not trust them. The situation started to feel weird when Mora and Marina were walking in front of us; we were following- strange power dynamics already. They were leading us to the other side of the squat, far away from the party. It felt wrong. It felt that they were hiding something from us and that they were hiding Kat. When we reached the entrance to the building, Mora said, ¨here, you can smoke as much as you want¨. I remember it sounded like irony to my ears, and my bad feeling escalated.
Kat was never asked how she felt, about what had happened or anything else. Mora and Marina left immediately, leaving us in a huge room with the party guards outside. The room was grand and cold and the only furniture was a wet sofa, where we sat. We felt alone, remote, isolated, vulnerable and lied to. This was not a place for a person to feel safe, but to feel alone and imprisoned. Nevertheless, I focused on Kat, trying to make sure that she was ok, safer now and that the bad feelings were going down. We were doing better and started enjoying each other’s company, but it didn’t last long. 5 people entered the room. They were white, dressed in black, they were standing, looking down at the 2 of us on the sofa. I will never forget the way they were standing and the expressionless voice announcing something in Dutch.
Briefly, they said that Kat was not welcome at the party, since physical violence took place. When Kat repeatedly mentioned the violence that trans* women face in society, which this party is a part of, they responded that “we” only care about the physical violence that happened in this party. They stressed that they did not recognize any other form of violence in the party. Kat asked if they acknowledged that trans misogyny was violence. But they responded:” We are not talking about this right now”. They literally said, “we don’t care about this now”.
Why do queer people and groups adopt the same concept of violence as the white, liberal, patriarchal state and society? And why exactly is¨physical violence” prioritized over the other forms of systematic, constitutional and everyday oppressions that queer people and, especially, trans women of color experience? This hierarchical isolation of “physical violence” is an active decontextualization of the whole story, i.e. focusing on the abstract, empty concept of ¨physical violence,¨ and away from how things fit in and work with the reproduction of oppressions every day, as if the ¨physical violence¨ occurred without any context. A trans woman of color was excluded and, for you, her response to transmisogynist violence is regarded as measurable along the guidelines of patriarchal violence. So not only do you flatten and decontextualize oppression and responses to it, but you also act like responses to oppressive violence can be equated, compared and judged by the definitions of “violence” created by oppressive forces.
We can easily find these, frankly, blatantly shitty, patriarchal ideas about what constitutes violence outside queer communities, among police authorities and juridicial systems’ ideas. This is not original, just a reproduction of patriarchal notions under a queer mask. And patriarchal shit does not look different with some glitter on it. Conservative, right wing groups would be envious of your ability to make violence and anti-violence relative.
The non-recognition of other forms of violence present, the decision you made and announced without taking into account Kat’s words, the lies told in order to take us out of the party and the way you did it constitute violence as well. I hope that it is clear by now that not only did you not find an appropriate solution, but, on the contrary, your actions were harmful and escalated transmisogyny and white supremacy.
Kat and myself were reasonably angry by these fucked up politics, and by our isolation at the other side of the party so no one would see what happened with Kat.
After the organising group announced Kat’s exclusion without showing a single sign of caring about her, they left us alone with the two white, cis guys who were guarding the building. I will not comment on a queer organisation’s decision to put white cis guys in charge of guarding a queer party. I will say that, for sure, these guys were not capable of understanding the situation, or behaving in ways that would de-escalate it, it was the contrary. You know that, so I consider it your fault and (ir)responsibility.
We went to get our bikes, which were parked at the other side of the field, some minutes walking from the remote place where we were. The two guys blocked our way, saying that they didn’t know anything about bikes, obviously following the instructions of the organising group. Despite our repeated demands to get out of our way, let us go to our bikes, stop touching us (I even asked them to “please” leave us alone and briefly explained to them that the tension was already high), but they didn’t listen. They kept touching us, blocking the way and pushing against us. They triggered Kat more by directly shoving her and making a provocative comment about her exclusion: ¨You should check your attitude¨, they said.
Because this small phrase, to me, reflects all the spirit of Saturday’s events, including the confrontation by the organising group; because trans women of color should either receive all kinds of violence in small and big amounts without complaining or responding back, or their attitudes will be called bad; because misgendering and transmisogyny were never taken seriously in this community; because people who systematically experience transmisogyny were seen as party poppers…
because of all these shit, we reply to this small phrase:
We should seriously look at our attitudes, at our fucked up queer politics, at all the thing we have been turning our backs on. Silence is violence. Not caring for certain bodies, valuing them as less important, is too. When a trans woman of color, whom, as it tends to be the case quite often, has received tones of violence during the last two years, at least in this fucking queer community, sends an itsy bitsy, teenie weenie piece of violence back, it is not the moment to exclude her. It is the moment to shut the fuck up and see what we have done wrong.
But what happens? People call the cops. With all the transmisogyny and racism they elevate. One of the most colonialist and patriarchical institutions in society. Remember how stonewall was an anti-police riot by trans women of color?
It’s troublesome how quickly pacifists who say they are against “physical violence” turn and support turning (in)to the police. They (got to and) decided that because Kat chose to respond to transmisogyny and harassment, Kat deserved the racist and patriarchical violence of the police, the judicial and prison system leveraged against her. It was alright and unimportant that she was misgendered over and over, and she deserved to be isolated, harassed, assaulted, policed, etc. But I guess it’s not so troubling to a lot of queers, because these things have also taken place at QueerSmear and have been facilitated by the organising team.
July, Jackie and other crazy bitches, 24.03.2015.