the silver lining is gratitude

This was written in response to a social media post regarding an anti-trans protest and counter protest that is scheduled to happen tomorrow, which reads in part “This event has a high potential for violence, especially towards visibly queer and racialized individuals… If you are visibly queer and/or racialized, we recommend that you AVOID this area on that day.”

I never thought I’d see the day when I would be so explicitly warned that it might not be safe for me somewhere… anywhere… in my hometown. Just because of how I look. That it would not be safe for me to stand up for my friends, stand up for love and not hate, or just stand because I need to stand and have it turn out to be the wrong place and the wrong time. Because someone might act on their belief that I should not exist and need to be “put in my place.”

I mean I know I’ve always been at added risk because of how I look. I have had to deal with it my whole life, and I see it still happening to my kids. But it’s one thing to deal with the… let’s call it petty racism of small-minded people… that can and does happen anywhere and everywhere. That’s just the background noise of my life. But I have been remarkably fortunate thus far to have somehow avoided the violent racism, which I know not everyone around me has.

And yet awareness of the deeply-seated racism in our society — whether petty or violent, knowing or merely ignorant — is one of the reasons why I’ve grown up so careful and intentional about how I am in this world, how I present myself, how I move through this world, even as I try to make and hold space in which others can exist and grow as they truly are.

But now to find myself in a situation where I am unable to hold that space, and instead need that space held for me? I guess the silver lining is gratitude… with my most profound thanks to all those who do and have and no doubt will need to again in the future.

This will be very much on my mind in the coming days and I may, or may not, have more to say about it. But in the meantime, be safe out there, my friends. And be curious. And be kind.