Errands for tartan paint, kick me signs pinned to gullible persons backs, washing lions in the Tower of London, pranks and japes, both jolly and ill-advised all mark the 32nd of March. I’m with Chaucer, don’t even name the day…and don’t play any foxy tricks on me. That is not to say I don’t enjoy reading the newspapers on All Fools Day. It has been a small joy of my adult life to see what little tricks they might play on their readership. The Taco Bell buying the Liberty Bell prank might have been my favorite.
So today I scanned the news. I dont see much to laugh about. The Pig that murdered George Floyd is getting his fair trial. More than he allowed Mr. Floyd. There is the usual litany of women’s lives lost to men’s violence.
A 44 year old gunman, named Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, 44, from Fullerton, was named as the suspect in the shooting on Thursday March 31st that went down in L.A. Orange police Lt. Jennifer Amat stated that the the shooter had chained the gates to the complex closed, trapping his victims. Three women, one man and one male child were allegedly murdered by Mr. Gonzalez. The nine year old boy was found dead in the arms of a critically injured women who was not his mother, according to the cops. Those words make my heart bleed. The care of one woman for another’s child. The tragedy. Sisters, we are awesome and we are in danger. Men’s violence towards women and children. Men’s rage. Men destroying love and families. It is always the men. No joke here.
I read about a male cop punching out a female teen at a gas station, lamping her so hard she flies backwards. I can barely watch the video.
I read how two MALE doormen in Manhattan locked the door on Vilma Kari, aged 65, as she was beaten in a race hate attack by a man. He had been in jail for matricide. They let him out. I guess women’s lives are to be frittered away as far as the courts are concerned. He had murdered his mother in 2002 in front of his 5 year old sister. He never should have walked free.
35 year old Rhonda Pattelena, was beaten to death with a rock, after her male partner allegedly took exception to her supposed “hand gesture to another man.” Sorry, Rhonda, I’m sorry I didn’t know you and didn’t get the chance to try and help you come to terms with running before it was too late. If there is any woman reading my blog that is being hurt, being threatened, being abused, please write to me. Please let me tell you however hard it is, there is life and there is escape. You can do it. I know you can, because I did.
Jill Biden is mocked for mispronouncing Spanish, I read. Figures. The shit-rag also has more than a few lines dedicated to what she is wearing. Bastards.
I lose my appetite for news. Yesterday’s death toll of women at the hands of men, at just a cursory glance, was so huge, so overwhelming, so immense that I lose my desire for a cheap giggle, a small laugh. Instead I’m nursing a small ball of female fury deep in my solar plexus.
Be kind! That is what I keep hearing. Be kind! Fuck that, I’m done with being kind at the expense of women.
I previously skirted around being asked if I consider transwomen to be women. I gave the kind answer. Not the honest one. I gave it because I am scared of male fury at my response. I owe it to my dead sisters, dead at the hands of men, to answer honestly. I owe it to myself.
Your dreams don’t reflect my reality, nor am I compelled to force my reality to be artificially altered in order to be kind. Only XX women are lesbians. Genital preferences are not bigotry. Transwomen are transwomen. Women are women – no CIS needed.
I am not an unkind person. Ill use whatever pronouns someone asks for, I never advocate for anything other than transfolk being treated fairly and kindly. Which is more than I can say for the raft of “die in a grease fire, TERF” shit I read on twitter. These are my views, I’m not forcing them on others, and I should be able to say this is how I feel without feeling at risk and danger. Doesn’t work that way, though, does it!
April Fools! You thought you had me beat!
Yeah…not quite….