Reading & discussion group every Thursday at
I find it pretty funny that our recent communique, written in response to misunderstandings about our existence by the uninitiated, was responded to by an anarchist who also misunderstands our existence and purpose for existing. To a large degree, the audience I had in mind when I wrote that was the average student leftist. When we say that we aren't a group, what we really mean is that we aren't an org. The student left engages with us as if we are, and they seem to not really understand that there are other ways of organizing, other ways of engaging with "politics," and other ways of engaging with and acting on belief and desire.
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We don't agree on anything in particular. I don't even like the writing.
To explain the reading and discussion group- which UPitt Anarchy is larger than- again would simply be repeating myself. You seem to be under the impression that having readings that the group at large tends to disfavor means that we don't have beliefs in common. Quite the contrary! Most if not all of our closest affiliates are anarchists within a queer, insurrectionary, nihilist, anti-or-post civ, egoist, and illegalist tendency. By extension, UPitt Anarchy as a collective skews towards these ideas as inspiration for how we act and communicate.
There's not that many “crews” but there's so many self-identified anarchists around.
I'm not sure what the point here is, when this is just a true about the state of anarchism on campus. Most of the anarchists I have met and spoken with on campus don't associate with crews or collectives, and a significant majority have nothing to do with UPitt Anarchy. Most are trapped in the pit of the organized student left, and commit themselves to never showing their teeth, posing no threat beyond chanting and holding signs. I know this because I was one! This isn't to say that the student left are all posers or whatever; Fossil Free Pitt will occasionally actually disrupt something, and I applaud them for that. The point that we would like to emphasize, though, is that the University does not let students take action that poses any kind of threat to them or their status quo. University-sanctioned activism is necessarily a dead end. We, more than anything, encourage students to crew up and take action into their own hands.
It's one thing to be not defining anything as part of a particular strategy in a particular context. It's another thing to not define anything because you can't, but to then own it and act like your ignorance is a practiced stance.
Most struggle and anger is still funneled into leftist orgs and parties. On a personal level, my own approach to action and strategy is largely informed by the time I spent putting all of my energy into orgs and getting no fulfillment from it. I don't think there are ways that I could define UPitt Anarchy that I haven't covered already. UPitt Anarchy isn't one concrete thing, and cannot be one concrete thing. To restrict UPitt Anarchy into anything but a network of loosely associated projects that share a banner would only limit our potential.
There's no material changes in society to define as a goal, aside from harm reduction, because they don't know what society is. They just were handed off from the care of their parents to the guardianship of the college administrators. The biggest oppression in their life is that they got officials telling them when to go to class so they're against authorities and against rules. Then they pick up the texts from 15 years ago that they have no context for and try mimic the same stances.
This assumes a lot about us. This assumes that we had sheltered upbringings, and that our greatest oppression is being told to go to class. What an ageist and dismissive statement! Our closest circle of affiliates come from different backgrounds, and had different upbringings. We oppose the institution not because it "tells us what to do," but because it is a scam granted legitimacy by society, and an instrument of the forces of capital to ensure that the wealthy stay wealthy and that the poor stay poor. There is no piece of information worth twenty thousand dollars a semester for four years. We live in an age where anyone with drive and free time can, with some exceptions, learn whatever they want on the internet for free. However, jobs that provide a living wage are overwhelmingly gatekept by a bachelor's degree. Sharing knowledge does not have to be oppressive; it is the corporatization of the institution and the construction of a surveillance state around it that makes it so. I find that Filler's For A University Against Itself articulates this better than I ever could, in a way that has only become more relevant since it was written.
When we pick up texts from fifteen years ago, we do so with the knowledge of what came after they were written. The social paradigm around queerness that most of the Bash Back! essays were written in, for example, has changed significantly. As you say in your response, your managers ask for your pronouns in meetings. Virtually every company and every institution makes a performative statement about "supporting the LGBTQIA+ community" every June. Trans women design bombs and other trans women order them to be dropped on Syrian civilians from drones. To be gay or trans has, depending on what the people around you are like, lost its subversiveness. None of these things are what "winning" looks like to us; quite the opposite, in fact! Our struggles being incorporated into Capital and the civilized order is an attempt by these organisms to take away our teeth. We seek to contribute to a queerness that is an existential threat to civilization.
You, probably.
They're cosplaying and singling out the backwoods hicks and rural christians who haven't had the training in professional-managerial speech that college kids get (or rather, they're singling out the public figures who try to corral such hicks into a voting block). But there will always be hicks. And the professional classes will always have a fetishized identity group to define and yell at people trying to corral hicks about.
I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that our enemies are "backwoods hicks." None of us are particularly big fans of the rural Christian right, but they are not people any of us encounter in our day-to-day lives (anymore) and they are of no consequence to us. I'm assuming this is about our public opposition to Michael Knowles and the various transphobic speakers that TPUSA have invited to campus. Our opposition to them does not come from a politic of moral superiority, nor from a politic of mocking the "uneducated." Our concern, however, is with people who call for our deaths, and whose rhetoric involves implicit threats to our safety. They are the defenders of a traditional civilized order that we seek to destroy, and that seeks to destroy us. Our opposition to transphobia does not come from a place of duty to protect a minoritized group, it comes from a place of desire to protect ourselves and people we share affinity with.
Pitt Anarchy is just consumer politics as usual. It's the status quo.
What are we trying to sell people? Is talking about anarchy "consumerist" now? Is every anarchist necessarily a poser? This reads like you just want to critique something for the sake of critiquing it.
– a millennial anarchist. go ahead, call me a boomer
Okay!
P.S. Do you know us? If so, I would love to discuss this in person.
We exist in a place of contradiction. Obviously, our counter-information site is a propaganda outlet. Who exactly are we propagandizing to, though? By situating ourselves in direct opposition to the institution of schooling in general and the Institution of the University of Pittsburgh in particular, we already alienate a vast majority of students and staff. Obviously, we are aware of this. We would love to sway them, but by no means do we expect to, nor is it our intention to.
So what's our deal?
UPitt Anarchy is not anything in particular. To call it a club is wholly inaccurate. UPitt Anarchy does not have a list of members, nor does it have a leader. The discussion group has consistent participants; students and community members, both within and outside of the anarchist milieu. Just the same, it has visitors who come once, ask questions, and never return. All of them talking in a circle about their perspectives and whatever that week's reading is are UPitt Anarchy in that moment. The website is maintained by about ten people, who post submissions that we receive anonymously, as well as advertising whatever events people choose to organize with "UPitt Anarchy" on the flyer. We are also UPitt Anarchy. The stickers and flyers are put up around campus by roughly three dozen people at their own discretion; we print a shitload, and people take them and put them up. There very well could be- and probably are- more, and I genuinely wouldn't know. Lots of people like putting stickers on things, anarchists and non-anarchists alike. Regardless of how down they actually are with us, when they put a UPitt Anarchy sticker on something, they are UPitt Anarchy. Fifteen or so people (probably more) have the login to the UPitt Anarchy social media pages, and they all post at their own discretion. These groups overlap, but they are distinct. They are our affiliates to various degrees; they are all UPitt Anarchy, but none of them are UPitt Anarchy all of the time.
So, any time an anarchist on campus does anarchy, they're UPitt Anarchy?
If they choose to be! Pittsburgh has a lot of anarchists. The University itself probably has more than the average large university, but by no means do we have a large presence as a milieu outside of certain academic departments. Active "crews" with a visible presence may be few and far-between, but there are a good number of self-identified anarchists among the student body. Lots of them don't like UPitt Anarchy! Many of those outside of our milieu, (henceforth referred to as "the uninitiated,") seem to be under the impression that any visibly anarchist act on campus is UPitt Anarchy by default, which is untrue. However, UPitt Anarchy is loosely organized enough that one of us could do something- creative or destructive- acting as UPitt Anarchy, and none of the rest of us would know. UPitt Anarchy does not claim responsibility for actions in general. I will say on a personal note, however, that I have heard assumptions among the uninitiated that certain visibly anarchist activities were the work of our collective, when I know that to be untrue.
What's the deal with the reading group?
We host discussion groups at the local infoshop, and anyone is welcome to come. It is not meant to be a space where we proselytize or "recruit." The discussion is a social event. Most of our discussions are centered around particular readings. These readings are not texts that we abide by dogmatically and seek to teach people. We are not teaching people theory. Most of what we read isn't really even "theory," and a fair bit of it is only of vague relevance to anarchy. The point of having a reading is to engage with it, and to discuss. Personally, I don't like most of the readings. It has actually become a pretty regular occurrence that we will have a reading that no one present at the discussion group actually agrees with the position of. Until recently, our readings were determined by a jar that anyone, in or outside of the group, could add titles of readings to, which were selected at random from a hat.
The discussion group itself functions, more than anything else, as a social space for ideas to be exchanged, with the intent of also getting like-minded people to get to know each other. We aim in part to be a jumping-off point for those interested in living and acting autonomously.
So, what do any of you actually do?
We, as individuals and a loosely-associated collective, act according to our desires. None of our close affiliates are only "being UPitt Anarchy" when we "do anarchy." Often, we "do anarchy" as UPitt Anarchy in ways that go intentionally unnoticed by others. As a collective situated within the post-left milieu, many of us are habitual criminals in various ways; to live autonomously in this way requires a degree of secrecy. To the uninitiated: most of the time, you won't know when or how we act. Security culture is of utmost importance, and loose lips sink ships.
Why do you favor chaos and disruption over expressing your worldview civilly in the free marketplace of ideas?
As agents of our own free will, we reject the framing of the question. Our contribution to the discourse comes in the form of chaos and disruption. We seek no peace or civility with people who call for our deaths, or who seek to restrict our autonomy. They are our enemies, and to do so only benefits them. It isn't that we don't want to listen. We hear them loud and clear. This is simply how we respond.
Why won't you talk to the press?
Our actions and our words speak for themselves. The press, by and large, seek to discredit the efforts of anarchists. The construction of the "outside agitator" narrative around anarchist involvement in the George Floyd uprising is evidence enough of this.
When Queer anarchists appeared at the rally for trans rights in front of the Cathedral of Learning on March 24th with a zine spread and a banner reading "These faggots kill fascists," Pitt News "journalist" Punya Bhasin tweeted, "The Pitt anarchy club just showed up to the trans rights rally with a sign containing a homophobic slur. They passed out pamphlets about 'surveillance and fascism.' They were swiftly met with trans rights supporters outnumbering the size of the anarchy club counter protests." This is an obvious lie, and an attempt to discredit UPitt Anarchy as transphobes using an action carried out by trans anarchists who were not acting as UPitt Anarchy. We don't need to talk to the press for them to lie about us. It is not in their interest to portray us favorably.
Do you really attempt to be taken seriously?
No! We engage with the theater of politics and public discourse as the clownshows that they are. They are frivolous institutions that are granted undue social legitimacy and we will engage with them frivolously. In some ways, UPitt Anarchy itself is a meme. We take anarchism seriously, but we don't really take ourselves seriously. We're called "UPitt Anarchy," for fuck's sake!
At solar noon on the spring equinox, four psychic insurgents of the Keebler Elf Liberation Front conducted a public ritual as a spectacle to prove to the masses of the earth that chaos magic works. By calling upon the forces of too many deities to list, use of powerful sigils, and publicly sacrificing an effigy of University of Pittsburgh Chief of Police James K. Loftus in the form of a meat-filled baby doll, the insurgents successfully levitated the Cathedral of Learning fifty feet in the air. In that very moment, the University (and its medical center) ended their stranlgehold on Oakland, and the neighborhood was liberated.
Read more...First of all, we would like to thank Eris Discordia for making this possible. As semi-dedicated agents of the POEE, it really would not have been possible without Goddess. She encouraged us every step of the way. We would also like to thank James Loftus, who our deep obsession for has fueled our struggle well, and continues to fuel our struggle through our collective aspiration to fight him in the astral plane, a journey which we prepare for with an intense regiment of astral weightlifting and kickboxing training. Last but certainly not least, we would like to thank the University of Pittsburgh's chapter of the Illuminati for their financial contributions to our struggle in undisclosable amounts. The levitation itself was really quite the show. The insurgents, wearing robes, at first numbering four but quickly inspiring masses of students to run to their dorms and join hands with them in robes and cloaks of their own, surrounded the cathedral, holding hands, singing various hymns, and chanting mantras. An insurgent, facing the Cathedral, sat on their knees and retrieved from their cloak a dagger and a baby doll, and shouted up at the imposing Tower: "Hail Eris, goddess of chaos and discord! We, psychic insurgents of the Keebler Elf Liberation Front, call upon your divine power to aid us in our sacred mission! We gather today to liberate the Cathedral of Learning from the shackles of the status quo and elevate it to new heights, both literally and figuratively. We offer to you this ritual sacrifice of the infant James Loftus! Grant us the strength and courage to carry out this act of resistance and rebellion, and to inspire others to join us in the fight for the liberation of ourselves and of the Keebler Elves kept in bondage by the American imperialists, who toil endlessly away in the cookie mines. May our actions sow the seeds of change and pave the way for a new era of freedom and creativity." They proceeded to disembowel the doll, revealing it to be filled with meat and entrails. They repeated their prayer again, this time with bloody hands full of intestines and chicken hearts pointed towards the heavens. Of course, the authorities were quick to respond, sending in their riot police and helicopters to put an end to our festivities. But we were prepared for them, and were able to slip away into the day, leaving them scratching their heads and wondering what had just happened. We led the crowd on a merry frolic through Schenley Park, where our festivities continued in a party in which suburban Philladelphian frat bros learned how to truly live in commune with nature, and in which the police that followed us into the woods layed down their shields, renounced their oppressive ways, and joined in. Fueled by an abundance of wine and psychedelics, the party devolved into a massive orgy at sundown that lasted until the wee hours of the morning. This was more than just a simple prank or act of rebellion. It was a symbolic act of resistance against the dominant culture and the structures of power that oppress us all. It absolutely could not have gone better. By taking control of the very architecture of the city, we challenged the authority of those who seek to control us and imposed our own vision of a world free from constraints. We hope to inpire others to take similar action of their own, and to devote themselves to Goddess as we ourselves have. There are no rules. Everything is permissible. We are governed by no laws; not by those that govern society nor those that govern reality. Hail Eris Discordia! -KELF
Read less...There are months during which on every street corner along Liberty Avenue lie dozens of Spin Scooters, toppled over with their QR codes covered by ink, waiting to be cleaned. The heads of scooters peek out of dumpsters, and their beautifully mangled corpses dot the bottoms of high drops. Videos of scooters being destroyed and vandalized made the rounds on anarchist Twitter in the winter of 2022. Why though?
Read more...When Pittsburghers were campaigning for an improvement in the effectiveness and accessibility of the city's public transit system during the pandemic, the city responded by raising bus and light rail fares, cutting funding for public transit and partnering with Spin, a San Francisco tech startup, to flood our streets with scooters, citing "accessibility" and "affordability." An electric scooter costs a dollar to rent and almost forty cents a minute to ride, making the supposed affordability benefit compared to buses a lie if the rider intends to spend more than five minutes on a scooter that travels at fifteen miles per hour. The payment process requires one to scan a QR code with their phone. Unlike busses and trolleycars, there isn't a way to pay in cash. While this may be "accessible to people without cars", it is not accessible to people without cell phones. Naturally, the monster of surveillance capitalism has roots deeply planted in this enterprise. The application collects real time location data as a necessary part of facilitating the rental and use of these scooters. This data- which includes your real-time location, places you spend lots of time, places you depart from, places you arrive to, your public transit ridership habits, the locations you set for home or work or school or recreation, how you prefer to use public transit- is aggregated and analyzed by both Spin and the local public transit authority to predict the behavior of public transit users and produce predictable behavior. This kind of tech surveillance already exists for drivers and bicyclists in the form of mainstream navigation apps. The venture of the Spin scooter serves to make this data-collecting surveillance hell machine accessible not only to those who rely on Google for driving or cycling directions, but also to those who rely on public transit. Further reading Call for the Creative Destruction of Rental Scooters They Can't Stop Us; Why Break Windows
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Some of the most radicalizing realizations are ones in which freedoms we have taken for granted are taken from us. Over the course of the semester, the University of Pittsburgh has followed the trend of the industrial world in drastically expanding its surveillance through placement of security cameras on street corners throughout campus and in several University buildings.
Read more...On the 6th of October, a student was sexually assaulted in a stairwell in the Cathedral of Learning, and whoever did it was never identified. The next day, over a hundred students demonstrated in the Cathedral, and a now-deleted petition gained over 6,000 signatures demanding, among other things, "security" measures such as cameras in the Cathedral and the closure of all University buildings to non-students and faculty, with a system similar to the one in place during the pandemic, in which entrances are watched by guards and everyone must scan their ID to enter. In response, the University's police department announced that it would increase the police presence in the Cathedral and install more security cameras. Markers indicating where some of these cameras would go started showing up in the fall, and within the last month, there were cameras installed in the stairwells of the Cathedral of Learning. It is no surprise to us that to a primarily liberal suburban student body raised in the post-9/11 era of engineered consent to be surveilled in the name of safety at every level of society, the security camera and the police officer are the first things that come to mind when they feel that their personal safety is threatened. To them, the only way to ensure safety is to introduce and expand the watchful eye of the law and keep undesirables- in this case, the city's poor and those visiting the University- out of public areas. Never mind the fact that the Cathedral is already full of cameras, full of security guards, and both filled and surrounded by convenient boxes dedicated to letting students summon the police at a moment's notice. Never mind the fact that there is a system of monitoring students already in place by means of tightly controlling student movement in and out of their dorms, and of assigning minders to covertly surveil students of interest to the University police, as was done to students allegedly connected to the Pittsburgh Autonomous Student Network several years ago. Needless to say, these new cameras keep students safe as much as the thousand or so cameras that blanketed campus before the assault happened: they don't. Instead, they put more eyes on people going about their days, and decrease the amount of space there is on campus in which we are not being constantly watched. Zero sexual assaults, almost all of which take place in dorms or at parties rather than at random in academic buildings, will be prevented by the presence of cameras in the stairwells. No amount of surveillance, police, or cameras will ever make incidents of violence not happen. It's horrific that someone was sexually assaulted in such a public place, but the solution does not and will never lie in granting more power to the police. They already have undue amounts of power over our lives and how we realize our desires, and they will take every opportunity to make this control as total and inescapable as they can. Do not help them. They are not your friends. To call for a total end to sexual assault would be mere performance, but we will not refrain from demanding and fighting for utopia at all costs. The safest communities are communities that keep themselves safe without relying on law, on police, or on carceral and punitive systems. The closest thing we can have to an end to rape is the destruction of the systems of domination that allow rapists to have and abuse power over their victims. Fuck the new cameras in the Cathedral. Fuck the new cameras on the street corners. Fuck the cameras that were already there. Fuck the police who put them there. Fuck the police who will continue to put up more. Towards a campus where HAIL TO PITT means FUCK THE POLICE. Further reading: Life Without Law Learning Good Consent Blinding the Cyclops For A University Against Itself
Read lessOver the past couple of weeks, more zines have trickled into our zine section. Sparked by multiple collective members' desire for more zines about chaos magic, we have scanned and put together some zines to add to our library. We now have a small section on magic and occultism, which can be accessed here. New zines include: Our Hearts Still Beating by Anonymous A description of rituals undertaken by activists before and during the Seattle May Day protests. Liber Nihil by Enemy Combatant Publications An essay on a nihilist and anarchist approach to chaos magic. Liber MMM by Peter Carroll A primer on the most essential basics of practicing chaos magic.
Picture courtesy of @pittsburghgraffiti
At midnight, Sunday January 29th, a few friends and I met in a black bloc at Friendship Park. We met to honor the lives of Tyre Nichols and Tortuguita and to express our rage at the police state that kills and controls us. Read more...
Because of our small size, we walked down an alley and took off layers to appear in a "gray bloc" so as to be less suspicious looking. Our bloc roved down the streets and the alleyways of Bloomfield, leaving a trail of anti-police, anti-gentrification, and personal tags. Some of our tags included, "REVENGE FOR TORT/TYRE", "#STOP COP CITY", and "KILLER COPS MAKE COP KILLERS" among others. We used common code-words to alert eachother of passing cars and pedestrians. The use of these code-words loosened as the night went on, leaving us to get caught by a squad car. After a short chase, all of the participants in the bloc dispersed, free from police custody. In hindsight, the choice of Friendship Park as a starting point was misinformed. The lights in Friendship Park stayed on at midnight, leaving us visible in our ninja attire to passing cars and security/police at the West Penn Hospital. A darker and less-central park or corner would've been a better choice. Also, the call to action for the bloc went out only about 7 hours beforehand. If more time was given, more people likely would've participated and would've had more time to prepare. This action also made me realize that our crew would benefit from making stronger connections with other crews so that actions like these could be organized more collaboratively in a "cluster". I would also like to thank those who provided us with feedback and jail support. Actions like these wouldn't be possible without your help. FUCK THE POLICE STATE REVENGE FOR TORT REVENGE FOR TYRE SOLIDARITY WITH THE ATLANTA FOREST DEFENDERS Read less
I was looking for a full backup of theanarchistlibrary.org the other day but couldn't find one. So, using a simple script, I've generated a full (text-only) backup of the anarchist library. The backup is 593mb uncompressed, and 224mb compressed. It can be accessed here, or on our zines page.
Posters spotted in Oakland. "Hail To Pitt" is an expression of love and pride for our university community. But how can we have pride when students are continuously fucked-over by Pitt administration, police, banks, transphobes, rapists, etc.? To combat these oppressive institutions, we must develop a culture of resistance. A culture where students and faculty can stand together against oppression without fearing repression. The Pitt, CMU, Oakland, and UPMC police, among others are major sources of this repression. So, as students engaged in social struggle, let's unite to say: "Hail to Pitt means fuck the police!"
Note from UPitt Anarchy: Every cop car burned is a blow against the police state. We hope that this attack sparks a million other cop car fires. Three Pittsburgh police cars were destroyed by fire outside the department’s North Side training academy early Wednesday, officials said. Read more...
Police said they consider the fire “suspicious.” Pittsburgh Public Safety said police and fire crews responded to the fire in the academy’s parking lot at about 2:30 a.m. and put out the vehicle fires. No one was injured, police said, and the academy building wasn’t damaged. "Those vehicles were fully engulfed in flames, and it's pretty safe to say that those are going to be a total loss," police spokesperson Amanda Mueller told Post-Gazette news partner KDKA-TV. Police said city arson investigators and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating. Read less
Graffiti spotted in Oakland. Relevant to our last discussion on At Daggers Drawn with the Existent, its Defenders and its False Critics.
Heres a good video on how to make a graffiti mop, which is just like a massive marker.
Graffiti is a literal assertion of the value of free expression over property.
By engaging in graffiti, we cast off notions of the sanctity of property and communicate to ourselves and others about our true desires.
This practice emboldens us to take more daring acts against the current social order and acts as a signal to prospective comrades, "YOU ARE NOT ALONE!"
So, what are you waiting for? Act for free and TAG SOME SHIT!
Note: Send in some pgh anti-authoritarian graffiti and we'll feature it. Really.
The counterprotest yesterday [September 9th] (which was awesome) was a great example of why we can’t rely on the government to protect trans people. Gainey can make whatever declarations he wants but the City’s actions are louder than its words. TL;DR – Despite claiming to support trans people, Ed Gainey and members of his administration took concrete action that protected TERFs and endangered counterprotesters. Read more...
From the time things got started to when the police (ayy fuck the pigs) told us that 30 minutes was a “reasonable amount of time to exercise your first amendment rights” and sent in the riot line, the TERFs were unable to broadcast IRL or online. In an attempt to avoid sending in the cops (bad optics), the city attempted to get the protest to cede its position voluntarily. @/TheMariaMontano, press secretary for Gainey, entered the crowd and asked to speak to a leader. This action is unacceptably dangerous. Asking to speak to a leader removes the autonomy of everyone else present! And also conveniently may identify a person for police to target. Whatever Maria’s intention, that is cop shit and we condemn in the strongest possible terms. Dangerous af, do not engage with that. When told that the demonstration was autonomous (no leaders, lfg), Maria requested that the crowd move back because she wanted to “keep you safe from the police”. Let’s be clear. There is no safe distance from the police. The City’s actions of sending in a declared ally of the cause of the counterprotest to defang its potency was entirely cynical. There was no real interest in preventing police harm, just a desire to avoid using the cops against a cause the City claims to support. Then, because we didn’t move, Ed Gainey’s police department shoved the crowd across the portico. The TERFs were pretty happy about it and able to livestream better. There is no doubt that if the cops hadn’t done that, the event would have ended even earlier. So, Ed Gainey can write a statement to the City Paper about how much his administration loves trans people. But in the streets, he’ll gladly use the police in a way that protects TERFs and puts trans counterprotesters and their allies in danger. Pittsburgh turned the fuck out and shut down the TERFs. Ed Gainey and his administration worked to prevent us from doing so. You’ve got some nice words there Ed, but your actions speak much louder. Fuck the state, they won’t protect us. We will. Solidarity forever. Read less
The TERFS tried to have some speeches in front of the City-County building. People showed up, many masked, and made it impossible for them to spread their transphobic message. Pots, pans, drums, a trumpet, blow horns, and claps completely drowned out their mic. People danced and shouted. It felt good to fuck up their shit, small victories empower us to continue in our action. But it felt like an incomplete victory. The TERFs got their speeches decently disrupted, but they remained outside of the City-County building, protected by the police. It was an overt display of the state’s enforcement of patriarchy and transphobia. The TERFs got to feel both empowered by the state’s protection, and persecuted by the disrupters (who far outnumbered them). Read more...
As individuals in the fight for trans lives, we must respond to this display with unbridled hostility. If the goal is to disrupt them, let’s force the transphobes to leave while few police are at the scene. We outnumbered them while they were setting up, when there was only one cop lingering about. That’s a ripe opportunity to fuck up or steal their signs, amps, mics, or anything else. Grab some friends, grab their shit, and get the fuck out. We should also understand that not every individual has the same risk tolerance when it comes to confronting hate. Diversity of tactics is something all disruptions, marches, blocs, etc. should emphasize. However, each individual can still mask up, wear anonymous clothing, and stay tight with the group. These simple steps are indispensable for the proliferation of confrontation. While there is greater risk with heightened confrontation, there is also greater reward. If transphobes and other hate-mongers know they will face physical repercussions when organizing on the streets, they will stay online, loose much of their hold over prospective followers, and fail to intimidate and harass trans people in our physical surroundings. Aside from the results more confrontational tactics might reap, they are simply more of an appropriate response to hate. Spreading hateful rhetoric has very real consequences. People kill themselves and kill others because of the rhetoric people like TERFs spread. Let’s treat this like the fight it is. We’re well past civil discourse. Let’s take the next step. Civil disobedience? Nah. Fuck the civil, let’s get disobedient. Read less