On Towing the Line and Proximity How your “kindness” towards those who hate hurt the ones they hate.

Today I had a young man by the name of Nicholas take me on in an attempt to shield a popular transphobe named Adam from rage. Adam had come in to my space and had displayed a profound hate towards transgender and intersex people. It was a hate that was filled with not only ignorance but malice at all 2SLGBTQIA+ people, but especially those who are gender and sex diverse while they are literally being erased from existence, cutting off human and civil rights by an executive order handed down by a madman.

Did Adam deserve my rage? Yes.

Did I unleash the fullness of that rage? No.

I told Adam that what he was doing was “useless” and I explained what happens to people when they live that sort of life in the end, all because you didn’t want that one soldier’s transgender child to be able to get therapy.

I know what it is like to watch hateful people exit this earth, a witness to the most depraved, people who literally wanted me dead, as I held their hands after their families and loved ones abandoned them in their final hours - a result of an unexamined life spent in subjugating others.

Adam, a “war planner” according to his bio, is the type of person who slides in under the radar for many, until he reveals the true nature of his character and intentions. Nicholas walks in proximity to Adam, as they are both “white” men benefiting daily from the same powerful and wealthy “white” men who have taken over our highest leadership office.

In that moment when I expressed righteous rage at Adam, Nicholas decided that he would step in to shield him, because Adam obviously needed protection. Nicholas found his common ground with someone who was of the same class and racial category, not with those he claims to advocate for.

Nicholas felt that I was not kind enough to Adam. That I should have been nicer and not been upset at all, that I had no right to be because even though he “didn’t agree with everything” that Adam publishes, he still found a place of proximity to sit with Adam comfortably at the table of patriarchy.