[socialjustice_fsu]

In some ways I am reluctant posting here after reading the horrendous experiences some of you have been through. I have vacillated between anger and tears as I have reread these posts here.

The reason for the reluctance...my experiences have not even come close to some of what has been described. However, I wanted to share how my encounter with my first street harrassment happened. It will be commited to memory for life. I have never been much of a bar girl. Never drank much and would not know the correct way to hold a pool stick if my life depended on it. But I was a tough, young, feminist woman. I decided to stop by the only women's bar in town and just 'be.' It was the first time I had gotten up the nerve to go in there solo. Once I got a place at the bar - even over the music - you could hear the cars speeding by and hatred being verbally hurled toward the bar. I was taken aback by the so open way of this hatred...I danced some, yes, got some phone numbers, gave out my number, etc. When I walked to my car (I was driving a Triumph convertible and yes the top was down) someone had thrown maggot infested, gross, nasty garbage all over the interior of my car. I felt like I had stepped into a syfy scene. I went inside and told them what had happened. All of the butches jumped up to come out and help me clean this mess out. As one masculine woman leaned over the driver's side she looked up at me, stood up, and with her steely blue eyes locked on mine and both of her hands firmly on my shoulders she said, "Tamara, they thought you were one of us, a butch. We go through things like this almost daily just to be who we are." I will never forget that moment in time. I cried for hours.

To read these experiences (WMM, FishIV and all) it makes my heart hurt.
And to think we had hoped to be a kinder, gentler nation.