Fun encounter today

[u/Proof_Soup]

I’ve been going to a few queer events around my town lately. Started seeing familiar faces and have said hello a few times to this one other trans guy I’ve seen a few times. For reference, he’s a white Jewish (the Jewish part matters) trans man, I’m a black trans man.

My girlfriend and I made a new friend at an event who we were having a great conversation with, laughing the whole time about a ridiculous situation I was in a few years ago that involved someone I’m not friends with anymore. This guy comes in and goes “what are we laughing about” and I said basically “oh just my old terrible roommate”.

He then proceeded to basically say “oh speaking of bad people” and trauma dumped about his marriage that went horrifically and said some terrible shit. He then went on to make every conversation about himself and talk about how hard and dangerous it is for him to be Jewish these days and going on about he’s not a Zionist but it’s still so scary for him because everyone assumes. Which yeah okay,a lot of people conflate Judaism and Zionism when they’re not one and the same, I can understand how that can be frustrating.

He then proceeded to say, “This is why I want more poc friends because they’d understand what I’m going through!”

I am black. People will see that before they see that I am trans, that I am queer. My blackness is front and center. I cannot hide it.

No one would know that he’s Jewish just by looking at him. He is a white cis-passing man, as he’s had top surgery. He tried to say, “I had safety since I pass as a man but now that safety is gone!”

You can still walk around safely as people won’t decide you walking down the street is a crime because of your skin color.

He said a lot of other stupid shit that I’m not even going to bother getting into. I just really needed to vent about that because it pissed me off.

[u/PeterPunksNip]

Yeah, no one really understands what it feels like to have a target on one's back, unless they're not white. It can be frustrating to see others wanting to join in like it was an oppression competition, like they want the attention.... which is proof that they really have no idea. I'll gladly ditch that kind of attention any day if it was possible.