No judgement to anyone, but I think pepper spray is a better option here because bigots want you to be a threat which makes resisting hard because resistance can be so easily propagandized as a violent threat.
If you spray someone in the face with pepper spray, well… it is much harder to make the argument you are a violent threat vs. that person was being a fucking creep and making you feel uncomfortable because you were alone with a stranger in a bathroom being accosted about details of your gender and body that have NOTHING to do with them.
It is 2025, I am not going to judge trans people or other vulnerable groups for taking their safety into their own hands, just be mindful of how you do it and consider how you can subvert the toxic attempt to narrativize your actions as evil.
A man barging into a private room with you alone. That alone is a threat of bodily harm and depending on the state. You are within your rights to consider it a lethal threat and can stand your ground. I suggest shooting the head or heart. Don’t injure. Shoot to kill. Just my opinion on clowns coming after people to prove their sex.
Look at this point if I see someone giving a trans/queer coded person shit/hurting them/threatening to hurt them I am going to assume my job is to get as many nearby people to notice and shut that shit down by sheer force of normal people crowding out the couple violent fascist assholes because they can’t do anything to a quickly growing crowd of angry normal people…
…so I am really not interested in judging queer people too hard on any reaction they have right now as a cisgender hetero white dude.
I am so mad, I think I could honestly convince most normal people to intervene with their bodies in a situation like that if there were enough people around, anti-trans beliefs aren’t that popular and most normal people are fucking tired of it and just want politicians to make their lives materially better and the more they hear about rightwing gender bullshit violence thinly veiled as pseudo-science the more creeped out they get about the weird obsessions of the rightwing that motivates these pathetic vessels of hate.
The problem of course, and what we are talking about, is when nobody but a queer coded person and a fascist are around, and I have no grounds to pass any judgement in how queer people choose to respond in that space.
No judgement to anyone, but I think pepper spray is a better option here because bigots want you to be a threat which makes resisting hard because resistance can be so easily propagandized as a violent threat.
If you spray someone in the face with pepper spray, well… it is much harder to make the argument you are a violent threat vs. that person was being a fucking creep and making you feel uncomfortable because you were alone with a stranger in a bathroom being accosted about details of your gender and body that have NOTHING to do with them.
It is 2025, I am not going to judge trans people or other vulnerable groups for taking their safety into their own hands, just be mindful of how you do it and consider how you can subvert the toxic attempt to narrativize your actions as evil.
A man barging into a private room with you alone. That alone is a threat of bodily harm and depending on the state. You are within your rights to consider it a lethal threat and can stand your ground. I suggest shooting the head or heart. Don’t injure. Shoot to kill. Just my opinion on clowns coming after people to prove their sex.
Look at this point if I see someone giving a trans/queer coded person shit/hurting them/threatening to hurt them I am going to assume my job is to get as many nearby people to notice and shut that shit down by sheer force of normal people crowding out the couple violent fascist assholes because they can’t do anything to a quickly growing crowd of angry normal people…
…so I am really not interested in judging queer people too hard on any reaction they have right now as a cisgender hetero white dude.
I am so mad, I think I could honestly convince most normal people to intervene with their bodies in a situation like that if there were enough people around, anti-trans beliefs aren’t that popular and most normal people are fucking tired of it and just want politicians to make their lives materially better and the more they hear about rightwing gender bullshit violence thinly veiled as pseudo-science the more creeped out they get about the weird obsessions of the rightwing that motivates these pathetic vessels of hate.
The problem of course, and what we are talking about, is when nobody but a queer coded person and a fascist are around, and I have no grounds to pass any judgement in how queer people choose to respond in that space.