A Study in Contradictions

So, I have this temping job and it's kind of soul crushingly, brain atrophyingly dull.

I process forms and type numbers into boxes. So, so dull.

But this is not what this post is about. This post is about something that happened while I was chatting to my co-workers. It's to make me remember.

I work in an office with 5 guys. One of them, we'll call him Dick (*foreshadows*) is a nice enough guy, but hellava annoying. I bite my tongue about once a minute because he's always getting things wrong and misquoting or mispronouncing the rest. He is the kind of man who says, "Well, the doctors say that, but what do they know?"

Then, last week, this happened. My person-who-sits-next-to-me-and-possibly-friend Neil (so named for his love of, and resemblance to a young, Neil Gaiman) was telling the story of the time his friend went to a gay bar and accidentally got involved in a fight and was punched by a transvestite. He described it as one of the most surreal things he'd ever seen.

Dick: Yeah, this one time, I was in Mission and there were just these two guys making out in the corner. And I was like, ew, no, too weird!

Me and Neil: What?!

Me: You can't say that. Really.

Dick: Why are you getting so offended? You're not even gay.

Me: Er, firstly, you shouldn't make assumptions about people's sexuality. And second, that's not the point, you are being a bigot, no buts.

Neil: Yeah, homophobia, much?

Dick: Stop criticising me! It's just not something I wanted to deal with, okay?

Me: No! Not okay! It's a terrible thing to say and I wouldn't feel right if I didn't say something. Okay?

.....

Yeah.

We went on a break fairly soon after and I posted a brief summary of what had happened, mostly just to get some of RAAAAAAAAGE out of me so that I could, you know, function as a human being. And my twitter flist were amazing, and made me feel much better. But, I started to feel a bit weird about it. Because people kept saying things like, "I'm so sorry you had to deal with that."

And it's not that I didn't appreciate it, because, I did, I really did. It's just. I did what I should have done. What should be the average response to this situation. I wasn't at risk, it wasn't brave. What's the worst that could have happened? A guy I didn't like much who had turned out to be a bigot disliked me? My boyfriend sometimes has to visit building sites for his job, and has been physcially threatened for reacting to racist and homophobic comments. Nothing like that was going to happen to me. No one had insulted me. No one had expressed disgust at the idea of me kissing my boy. I was totally fine.

I have it so easy. I am a white, well educated, cisgendered Westerner, living in a society where I can express my views with next to no personal risk. And that's privilege, and I should use it for something good. I spent the best part of a day worrying about having been impolite. About people thinking I was some crazy person who ranted about issues. So I'm writing about this to remind myself that I shouldn't feel that way. Calling someone out on their bigotry is not the same as being rude, and if they hate me for it, well, fuck them in the ear, as azurelunatic put it. It's not a big brave thing to do. It's something I regret not doing more. It's something I'm going to do more. I might get to make a man think twice about expressing hateful views in public. Good. We need more safe spaces. Maybe it won't do anything. But I'll still be trying. This is more the me I want to be and this is about all of us.

And this post is a thank you to fandom. For making me work at learning to unpack my privilege. In the end my co-workers backed me up (even the shy, dorky boys and the super macho Marine in training :D) but I could have been one person, saying something unpopular but right. Thanks, fandom, for making me realise that this is something I should be doing without thinking about it. Thank you for giving me the tools to back up my arguments, for teaching me how to admit I'm not perfect. For being queer and kinky and silly so fabulously, and unapologetically unafraid to be different. This is more the me I want to be and this is about all of us.

This post is a reminder, self, to woman up and grow some boobs (note to body: metaphorical boobs only, plz. Boob situation already more than adequate).