When I first heard about this I was hoping (and praying) it wasn't a POC involved in this jacked up attack of a trans person because I knew how ugly this would get.
And once the word got out it was a white transwoman attacked by two black women, my worst fears have been realized. .
Before I dive into this, let me make it abundantly clear that I'm royally pissed about what happened to Chrissy Lee Polis and want to see the perps brought to justice. The 14 year old and 18 year old Teonna Monae Brown.have already been arrested as I write this. The employee who videotaped the beatdown is no longer employed at that particular McDonald location.
But sadly, there is no denying that race is percolating front and center in this case of anti trans violence as well. Since the trans community is a subset of the parent society infected by the same ills, you can cease and desist with the protestations of or trying to be 'colorblind' about this.
Ignoring race and how it insidiously operates in the trans community hasn't made it go away in the decade plus I've been involved in its civil rights struggle.
If you're in denial that this transphobic Mickey D's attack isn't about race, then check out some of the problematic and straight up bigoted commentary around the net on on various websites about this.. It may have started as a simple argument in a suburban McDonald's bathroom between three women that turned into a vicious fight, but it's not any more.
Here's an example of it:
Case, are you condoning the giant apes actions? I don't care if myself being a 230 lbs walked in a women's bathroom, it doesn't let someone beat the crap out of me. Transgender or not, it does not condone it, I honestly hope that girls ends up in a ditch somewhere, this attack was disgusting, and they kept going back for more and more. The employees that work there are cowards, the manager and everyone but that poor older woman are cowards. I would have loved to beat the living S#&* out of two pieces of crap stomping a defenseless girl.
And right now, the Black trans community is stuck uncomfortably in the middle of this mess. Never mind the fact Moni and other Black transpeople have condemned and continue to condemn the attack The bottom line is once again, we see elements of the white community using it as a excuse to let their inner Archie Bunker out, and some of those Archie Bunker wannabees expressing themselves are TBLG people. .
When I wrote my initial post, I intentionally focused it on attacking the bathroom meme. Wasn't expecting some people to trip on the 'white wing' conservatives line and accuse me on my FB page of 'trying to make this about race'. The reality is the conservative moment and its leadership is overwhelmingly dominated by white people, and they are pushing the bathroom predator meme in order to retard the progress of trans civil rights. You don't like that Moni stated the inescapable truth about that, tough.
But now the pushing of that bathroom predator meme is starting to have deleterious effects on our ability to simply go to the bathroom in peace to the point where people think it's okay to violently resist our civil rights to do so The point is we need to use this as a teachable moment to talk about anti-trans violence, why the bathroom predator meme need to be utterly attacked, debunked, discredited and destroyed, and why it's important that any trans rights laws have public accommodations language with strong enforcement teeth.
We also need to have an honest conversation about race and race relations in the trans community as well..