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cosmolinguistI got off on the wrong foot with Manchester Trans Pride('s organizers) last year when I tried to volunteer to improve their (abysmal) accessibility and the person was defensive and ghosted me.
(I went back this morning just to check I wasn't misremembering this or being unfair. I was not.)
From a pal who did volunteer last year, I got the impression of a group whose trauma left them wary of outsiders. Understandable individually, but that's no way to get an event of the scope this city deserves.
It feels like Trans Pride Manchester is nothing to do with me at all this year. I was looking forward to going to my trans-specific gym class this morning instead.
Between my trip to London and the instructor being on vacation before that, I have hardly been lately. And because I benefit from exercise primarily as a way to manage my mental health, and my mental health is in need of all the help it can get right now, I was really looking forward to the weightlifting session this morning.
D was going to the march, though, so we left the house together. The bus ride was unusually slow. Some stops had tons of people waiting to get on. Half a dozen middle-aged ladies at one point, all speaking Spanish to each other. One sat near us and asked about their destination, which the bus would pass before ours so we promised to tell her when we got there.
The bus's progress was slow. I started to worry about being late for my class (which makes the room it's in a real pain to get in to, so that gave me something to fret about).
A couple people in their early 20s got on the bus at another point, and D immediately said "I think we know where they're going." We got chatting; they were indeed on their way to the march too. We exchanged names and pronouns.
The bus stopped for a very long time at one point, still well away from the city centre. Suddenly I noticed that the driver was standing outside his cab, with his phone to his ear. I couldn't tell if he was saying anything. But when he got off the phone, it was to say that the EDL (fascists) had gotten violent in the city centre and that no buses would be going that way at all. We all had to get off at the next stop. He recommended against going into town at all because it wasn't safe.
The far right were gathering all over England today, bringing their violent islamophobia and racism to many cities. It was nothing to do with Trans Pride Manchester, but obviously having them on the same day in the same city centre was very concerning. I felt a bit guilty for not wanting to go, but it wasn't the fash I was worried about, it was the regular march: lots of strangers to bump into, lots of noise I cope increasingly poorly with the older I get...
But since this meant I absolutely wouldn't be going to my gym class because now I couldn't get there, I figured I might as well go with D! Especially when we realized that people on the bus needed help getting to where they were going.
D and I could reach the march starting point without going to the parts of the city centre that were dangerous. And we could get the Spanish ladies to their intended destination too, it was still on our way. And the baby queers didn't actually know where they were going, so they came with us too.
D shepherded the Spanish ladies, while us three crips with our mobility aids (a rollator, one of those walking canes with a fold-out seat, and me with my All-Terrain Cane ) walked a little more slowly than did this group with a train to catch who'd expected to be riding a bus instead of walking.
We were quick enough catching up that I got to see D merrily waving the Spanish ladies towards their train station, beaming and looking for all the world like a tour guide who did this every day. They excitedly waved back and called "Adiós!" to us, it was adorable.
And the four of us carried on to the staging area for the march. When we got there, I was very happy to collapse in the grass but my ankle was very unhappy at the prospect of joining the march. I tried to rest before coming up with a plan, which was of course made more didfi3vy the lack of buses. Pubs also hadn't opened yet, having planned not to because of the fash, so there were few places I could sit and relax. And while I was okay with the idea of going home, I really wanted to see the friends we were planning on having lunch and drinks with after the march -- I'd planned to join them after my gym class for that.
Things happened quickly though: speeches soon started and it seemed rude to leave. And one of the first ones was someone from Trans Actual, an organization I think well of. I liked a lot of this person's speech: "Governments come and go. Health ministers come and go. NHS commissioners come and go. But trans people will always be here." it's easy to get wound up about a particular health minister when really there's a bigger picture.
He was also the first person to acknowledge the EDL across town saying something that my frantic transcription on my phone ended up depicting as: "We have to show support not just because Muslims can be trans too but because the racism and transphobia all comes form the same place." I do like that acknowledgement of intersectionality not just as a gotcha (otherwise we do think of trans people as being stereotypically white and either actually or culturally Christian) but as a reminder of the importance of solidarity when all bigotry stems from the same sources. Like we've seen highlighted again in the Olympics, transphobia relies on white supremacy and colonialism; it could not exist without them.
The last thing I noted down from him was an encouragement for people to actually meet with their MPs, until every MP has met a trans constituent. "So that when they're making these decisions, they know who they're talking about. They'll picture our face." (I have been meaning to write to my MP since he got elected and still haven't. I've been feeling really bad about this, really remiss, but I've just realized it still hasn't been a month since the election. That is genuinely shocking to me.)
Next we had a poet who I think might be named Maz, who introduced themself with "I am not just trans, I am Black and I am fat!" which got a huge cheer. They shared a poem that was about all of those things and was so incredibly good that I was sad I didn't catch their name.
Then a pal came up and sat down on the grass next to me. He told me he's getting clips of trans people telling him what brings them joy. Tears still on my face from the eloquence with which a fat Black trans British experience had been presented in Maz's poem, I babble into his phone about joy in feeling connected to my body in the weightlifting class I'd normally be at on a Saturday morning.
He's tyring to recruit people for his trans open mic night. I said I could do some shitty poetry if he needs it. I fear he does. We hug and take a selfie, and he runs off saying "I have to get a photo of that sausage dog!"
Later in the march, D tells me about a sign he can see that says something like "shove it up your Cass Report". At the end of the march, he says "Oh, that sign belongs to [this pal]!" Ha, I should've known.
Amusing as it is to think that the fash literally made me march against them, doing so totally validated my original decision: I was right that it was way too much for me. I kept bumping into people, I was extremely overstimulated by whistles and clashing chants I could often hear at once.
It was fun to hang out with our friends but they also brought along a friend of theirs who's one of the many Lib Dems who abruptly stopped talking to D and me, which was okay but a little awkward and added to my exhaustion.
I get home sore and exhausted, and have to talk to my parents this evening! Usually it's on a Sunday so I wasn't expecting it.
It's been a hell of a week for them so I'm glad I could absorb all this when I don't have >12 hours before I have to work! That's how it usually goes.
Still, as I so often am after the weekly call, I'm left full of nervous energy that I'm way too exhausted to get out of my system (I actually had a brief moment of wondering if I should go for a walk, since that's a go-to thing for me when I'm in this state, before I remembered how much goddam walking I had already done today!). On an already exhausting/overwhelming day, it's a lot to deal with. There were a couple things from this conversation that I probably should write about, but this is already way too long, so maybe tomorrow.
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Date: 2024-08-04 12:39 pm (UTC)Yeah I had a good amount of sleep last night and have absolutely no plans today. My ankle is even feeling pretty normal-for-me again already.
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Date: 2024-08-04 11:11 pm (UTC)Decent sleep++