I got hate crimed and now I’m afraid to get on the train.
A couple weeks ago I was cornered on the light rail by a man screaming homophobic slurs at me and threatening to beat me if I said anything or looked at him. Pretty textbook homophobic hate crime, though the guy clearly had some mental health stuff going on. He then got off on the next stop, fortunately, but I’m still pretty shook by the whole situation. Particularly, that this was a pretty full train car and nobody did anything to try and stand up for me - everyone just kept glued to their phones during and after, leaving me to get off the train a crying mess a few stops later. I can’t even blame people for not intervening in the moment - there have been a few high-profile stabbings here of good samaritans confronting bigots - but the fact that everyone ignored it after as well… I still think I live in maybe the best city on earth to be trans, but that was devastating.
I got back to work and my team was super supportive, boss drove me home, it was nice. It was also right before my planned vacation with the bf’s family, so I got to start that a day early.
But when I returned to work this morning, I realized I’m still kind of scared. My normal bus to work is usually crowded enough that nobody can get up to anything, but I used to really prefer the rail and now I don’t know if I can keep riding it. I want to stop at the store to grab groceries on my way home, but that would mean getting on the big unprotected train car and idk if I’m up for that.
Shit sucks. I’ve been out since 2008 and experienced lots of little transphobic aggressions, but this is the worst I’ve ever dealt with and the only time to really stick to me like this.
In brighter news the rest of this month has been lovely. I went to my bf’s hometown to spend a week with his family, came home and got super fucking sick (that part was actually awful, I was bedridden with a double ear infection), but got better just in time for us to spend a weekend at the beach with my family. Feels good finally having a partner where both families like us, very new to me.
CW: transphobia, violence
I got hate crimed and now I’m afraid to get on the train.
A couple weeks ago I was cornered on the light rail by a man screaming homophobic slurs at me and threatening to beat me if I said anything or looked at him. Pretty textbook homophobic hate crime, though the guy clearly had some mental health stuff going on. He then got off on the next stop, fortunately, but I’m still pretty shook by the whole situation. Particularly, that this was a pretty full train car and nobody did anything to try and stand up for me - everyone just kept glued to their phones during and after, leaving me to get off the train a crying mess a few stops later. I can’t even blame people for not intervening in the moment - there have been a few high-profile stabbings here of good samaritans confronting bigots - but the fact that everyone ignored it after as well… I still think I live in maybe the best city on earth to be trans, but that was devastating.
I got back to work and my team was super supportive, boss drove me home, it was nice. It was also right before my planned vacation with the bf’s family, so I got to start that a day early.
But when I returned to work this morning, I realized I’m still kind of scared. My normal bus to work is usually crowded enough that nobody can get up to anything, but I used to really prefer the rail and now I don’t know if I can keep riding it. I want to stop at the store to grab groceries on my way home, but that would mean getting on the big unprotected train car and idk if I’m up for that.
Shit sucks. I’ve been out since 2008 and experienced lots of little transphobic aggressions, but this is the worst I’ve ever dealt with and the only time to really stick to me like this.
In brighter news the rest of this month has been lovely. I went to my bf’s hometown to spend a week with his family, came home and got super fucking sick (that part was actually awful, I was bedridden with a double ear infection), but got better just in time for us to spend a weekend at the beach with my family. Feels good finally having a partner where both families like us, very new to me.