Angie Zapata was "deceptive", in other news, her killer's defense team can kiss my ass

Please Please Please. [Bit of a trigger warning] This is both one of the most upsetting and most important things you could do today. Go to the link here:

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/10511/are-trans-people-like-angie-and-me-deceptive

If you need me to repeat the link, I will. The defense is (of course) using the tired ol' "gay panic" routine, but now it's "trans panic" and the murderer was "duped". They have been refusing to use the correct name and pronouns when talking about her. Her family, being questioned on the stand, had to correct the lawyer every. single. time. That they should stand up to such bullying shouldn't be considered amazing and brave, but I nonetheless feel it is.

Because I spent part of the weekend with my relatives. Every single one of whom knows my gender identity. Not once could they manage to get my pronouns right (nor did they try, or correct themselves). The best they seemed to manage was to not use pronouns at all (when actively called on it). Today I told someone I that I didn't care anymore. But it was a lie. I care every fucking time, but since my entire life is one giant fuck-you to my identity, I feel defeated and beat down and unable to do anything.

But help is on the way. Because every time I read posts like this, every time I hear and read people say something, I get that much better at being able to stand up for myself and everyone else. Every time I read a hilarious troll stomping post (I swear this time it's not the same link), I'm that much more able to tell off creepy sexist patrons at my work.

Oh, so story from work: I'm sitting at my computer, as I do, when a patron/resident tells me the printer is out of paper. Which is frustrating 'cause we're damn near out. So I saunter on over to replace the paper. As I pass his chair he tells me "good girl," as though I'm a fucking puppy doing a trick or something. I tell him "I don't appreciate that and that's inappropriate. I'm changing this paper because it's my job, I get PAID to do it, I don't need you to tell me that I'm a 'good' anything." As he leaves he apologizes and tells me that he didn't mean to be rude. I tell him thanks, but it was rather patronizing.

As I was saying: every time I read feminists standing up for themselves, every time I read trans people standing up for themselves, I am that much more able to stand up for myself as well. Because telling someone off is a practiced skill, and the -isms of this world thrive on the fact that no one bothers to tell them off, so we never get practice, and by the time it's a Big. Fucking. Deal. we just don't know what to do.

So, stand up for yourself (and others, damnit!) today. It does the body good.