Guilty as Charged

I struggle deeply with guilt. It's a fundamental aspect of my being.

I am far from a perfect individual. I have lied, hurt people, centered my feelings in a situation where it did not belong and made a number of embarrassing, problematic and outrageous drunk decisions (along with drunk comments). 

But I do try, especially as I am older, to live a life I can be proud of. I do want my legacy to be one of a person who was kind, thoughtful and caring. 

But one thing I've struggled with my entire time life is dealing with internal feelings of guilt. I accept that I have imposter syndrome. But to make matters worst, I am psychologically more far gone than that!

I believe everyone is talking about me--and planning to expose me for this horrific person I am. And interestingly enough, more often than not, what I am imagining is based on events that did not take place. So I spend a bunch of time worrying about being exposed for actions/words that never happened. I know that sounds "crazy" but its part of my experience with intrusive thoughts.

But I also am an introvert. And introvertedness is deeply misunderstood. A dear friend wrote this article, specific to the coronavirus quarantine and being an introvert, and much of it stood out to me.

"People have accused me of being scheming, untrustworthy, mean, rude, stuck-up, and bitchy because they’re put off by my private, cautious, and contemplative nature. “Hot and cold” is another term often used to frame me as someone without the ability to regulate my moods, because others have failed to understand my need for quiet time and personal space after long bouts of social interaction." - Sherronda J. Brown

I, too, am often accused of being scheming and untrustworthy--and this only validates both my imposter syndrome and my intrusive inner dialogues even further. 

If attention is on me, whether positive or negative, its very possible I will turn beet red. I will stammer a bit and I might sound off-track. I tend to look away and feel very shamed and embarrassed. Because of this, I have been accused of lying in situations where I am not lying. I am often told I look and sound like "I got caught". Added to my generally guarded demeanor, it makes plenty of room for people to think I am lying and concealing information.

I'm actually not that great at lying, especially on the spot. Of course I've done it, we all have, sometimes it was for safety, other times to maintain negative peace.

But I have "tells" when I am on the spot. What I am truly experiencing is the awkwardness of being in any "spotlight". I also have a tendency to over-explain, as a result of continuously being accused of being schemey is my mechanism to defend and defend. This only perpetuates more of an attitude toward me that I am lying and concealing. 

Further, I am afraid of making mistakes. I'm afraid of making them because when addressed, I will respond as I described (turning red, stammering, looking away). This means, often times, that my mistakes will be interpreted as something more deviant, and while impact means more than intent, intent can still matter when determining how to approach the mistakes.

I do my best to stay clear of being in any type of conflict or behavior that might lead to me being in the spotlight. Insomuch, I once had a hilarious post get 500 shares and I locked it at that point to stop it. 500 is nothing compared to some of the friends I have with 10s of 1000s of shares. But to me, it was putting me in a digital spotlight. And since (in my nonsensical mind) everyone is planning and talking about me behind my back, the more exposure my digital footprint has, the more ammunition for my ultimate shame and demise.

I could never be a public figure because I could not survive the scrutiny. If I was in the trial of public opinion, my "tells" and awkwardness would surely "expose" me.

So much so that I would probably just not respond. 

Living with this anxiety is frightening and it has led me to devalue and distrust my own position and hold myself far more accountable for any actual lies and mistakes I've made than, I suspect, the average person would.

It can make it difficult to be "convincing" when I am truly telling the truth and my it makes me even more apt to want to hide any actual mistakes or perceptions of possible wrong-doing, to a degree that I start to perpetuate the schemey behavior I am being accused of. 

I struggle with the person who did not know better, who laughed at inappropriate jokes, did not understand emotional or physical boundaries to the same degree. Because I believe I am non-redeemable.

This a tough balance to live considering my ardent beliefs in restorative justice--but we don't live in that society. We live in a "once a criminal, always a criminal" society with a sense of purity politics and irredeemability.

All these pressures, on top of my intrusive thoughts, imposter sydromes and inabiliy to look "truthful" when on the spot make it very difficult to move and navigate through life as an imperfect person, but alas, I must. 

The Life of the Party

Cw: Sexual activity/assault, intoxication

When I was in my early 20's, I learned about partying.

Actually I learned about partying much younger. I was raised in an alcoholic home and as such, I was introduced to chaos and partying very early on. But I digress.

When I was in my early 20's, I went to this party at a close friends house. It was a bunch of people there, mostly 19-24. 

Somehow the way the liquor hit me, I wound up completely nude.

There is no one I hate more than drunk me and how humiliating I am to the more introverted sober me. 

Nonetheless, it happened.

I barely remember the evening.

I do remember somehow going to the community pool and "skinny dipping". I don't know how we got away with that. It's somewhat freeing when you think about it.

My next memory, I had a guy on top of me, performing very rough (with teeth) oral sex on me.

When I say with teeth, I mean with teeth. It took weeks to heal.

I woke up to that.

I never thought of it as a strange experience until years later, when I realized, I had no cognitive say in that action.

Perhaps the highly drunk intoxicated me "wanted it" but that wasn't a cognitive choice.

And that disturbs me.

And to think, the next day I apologized to him about it because I somehow felt guilty and responsible.

I don't know what I intend of making this writing but rather, I just needed to say it. 

Writing heals. 

Regretful Goodbye

As I write this, I am going through this in my memory. I'm writing this because it helps me deal with pain and guilt. I am NOT writing this to vilify myself or my ex-boyfriend. Although I use false name for him in this posting, it may be obvious to anyone who was in my life at the time as to who I am discussing. He and I are on good terms, I've apologized, he's apologized. I was trash at times, so was he. I am only writing this because it helps me close doors that aren't naturally closed. 

I am happily secure in a new relationship. Almost 2.5 years and we share our first apartment together. Everything's fine and the love is flowing! But among this global pandemic that is the coronavirus, there is a ton of time to think...and one thing I thought about is how my last relationship ended and how I have and have not dealt with that.

For the backstory, I met Paul in the very end of 2015 and we wound up spending the New Year together moving into 2016. We were both in our mid-20s and it just seemed to mesh well. Much of it is blurry now--but by January 2016 we were officially boyfriends and then by February I was already professing my love. This isn't surprising because I am historically codependent. Codependent or not though, it was genuine love. I loved Paul with all my being but what I did not do well was balance that love to scale for the reality I was in.

Paul lived with his family and worked nearby them. He did not have a vehicle and his family was 45 minutes from me. Because he had no car, and a low-paying job, I had to make it a point to visit him. A 45 minute drive isn't bad during the honeymoon phase. But when the relationship develops and especially when the codependent feelings form, 45 minutes becomes a problem. To make matters worse, although his family knew he was gay, they didn't like it. They tolerated him but they had no interest in tolerating me and they made that no secret. It eventually became awkward and uncomfortable to be there, so I would drive the 45 minutes to pick him up, take him to my home with my then roommates (and drag family), who were welcoming, even in our own shady way. It did not help that occasionally we would have to make trips back to walk his siberian husky, so as you can imagine, this got frustrating. But I continued to deal with it.

I guess I always figured, and this is codependent thinking, if you do for others, you will eventually get yours.
and I should note, Paul is not a bad guy. He isn't a bad guy now and he wasn't a bad guy then. I have no reason to believe or ever state that he intentionally was causing harm to me. And while I am not blaming myself either, I also did not set the appropriate boundaries, as codependents often don't. As such, this process continued well into the year and a half relationship.

Most of our relationship was good. No, it was great, actually. We had lots of fun together, he was an upcoming performer in the local drag circuit as a male entertainer and I was his number one fan. I was at almost every show. I was gaining traction in activism, to the point of running protests and workshops: he was almost none of those events--despite me having asked him to be.

After eight months, we decided to be poly. By poly, we were monogamous romantically but poly sexually. To explain further, we only "dated" one another but we would have sex with other individuals. It was usually something we did together, either at sex parties or hook-ups, but occasionally we did it separately. We always communicated and it worked out very well. This may sound like the part of this story that leads to the relationships demise but it wasn't. The poly life did not cause us any distress and if anything, brought us together closer for the most part.

In 2017, after the devastation of the Trump win, we all went into a collective depression and the activist life became more stressful and demanding. To make matters worse, tragically in March 2017, my sister-in-law was killed in her home, rendering my older brother a sudden single parent to a 3 year old girl overnight. I felt I had no choice. I left my home and moved into a spare room in his home and I jumped in as a co-parent to my niece. I am still happy I did that. But as you can imagine, this increased my stress and I needed more support than ever from Paul.

But nothing had really changed. I still had to transport him and when I was too tired to do that, I would pay for Lyfts to do it, which adds up quickly. I kept doing it though. Now I was starting to vocalize it.

Paul couldn't keep his income together because he kept losing jobs. A person can get fired, hell, I have been. But in a year and a half together, he went through at least five jobs. It's difficult to believe its unfortunate luck by that point.

I continued to rack up credit card debt helping him out with bills. I remember at one point, I paid over $500 to catch him up and we agreed he would pay me $75 every paycheck until the debt was settled. When it came time for a paycheck he sent me $25 and I demanded the other $50. It was an argument I wish I hadn't had to have because honestly, why couldn't Paul just live to his end of the bargain? He complied, though, and gave me the $50. But it left me feeling very sour.

My birthday in 2017 was not pleasant. By this point, we'd been together a year and three months. He said he was handling it and we went out with a bunch of my friends which was nice. I regretfully, however, paid for my own meal and drinks and Paul's meals and drinks. I also, for some drunken reason, decided to share a video of a sexual nature with someone I used to flirt with (before our relationship). We had exchanged stuff like this before. I suppose I didn't conceptualize it as a problem back then because we were poly but because the person was someone I had some previous emotional connection with, it was naturally uneasy for Paul. He was upset and rightfully. I remember telling him I was very disappointed with being responsible for my own birthday cost and that I was tired of being neglected. I said that wasn't an excuse for crossing that boundary though and I apologized. It wasn't an excuse, it was trashy to do that. It was acting out. There is a reason, for sure, but not an excuse. We worked through that.

Honestly, though, that's when we should have broken up. Doing all this for him, jumping through emotional hoops, financial hoops and all of that and at the very least I should have been able to felt special on my birthday.

But we didn't. Because when I say I loved Paul, I truly loved him and as a codependent I was willing to let that be my detriment. However, the relationship never truly recovered from that night.

In July, things came to a head. I remember I was so in the zone when he came over (via a Lyft funded by me). I wasn't in the mood. I wasn't excited to see him. He was building a Sims family, and I remember it was an imaginary us in the future with a child and a dog. I scoffed at it because I was annoyed how nurturing that was. I went to lay down and we cuddled, which would be for the last time. He had a show that night, I went, as always and I had some wine, as always. The show went amazingly, in my opinion, it was some of his best work.

Somehow, he didn't think so and his anxiety was very high. I had him drive us back to my home in my car. He was complaining about the show and I was trying to use positive and affirming language. He yelled at me. I don't remember what he said but I lost it. I started yelling back and told him to just drive. I was fuming. I was mad. I was already feeling many feelings and I had complained about the lack of emotional attention, the costs adding up of transportation, the lack of secure income, the neglect, the problems so many times. I guess I wasn't interested in what his concern was this night at that point.

We're heading back into my house and I tell him to stay outside that his Lyft will come get him. He was confused but then mentioned his laptop was upstairs, so I told him to "hurry his ass up and get out here, you have 30 seconds." I told him I've set the houses alarm and that the system is connected and monitored & I didn't want any trouble with the alarm company, so hurry up and get out so it doesn't go off. I also did not want it to blare and wake up my niece. He walks outside and I tell him to wait for the Lyft, he said something back, whatever it was, I didn't like it, so I closed the door.

I canceled the Lyft.

It was a petty thing to do. I see from my upstairs window the Lyft arrive. They talk and then I get a Facebook message. See, Paul's phone was off because, well, he didn't pay the bill. But he could Facebook through his laptop. He messages me that the Lyft was cancelled. I told him to pay for his own Lyft because he's a grown ass man. He said he would give me the $50 from the show he had just done. I don't know why he didn't just give the Lyft driver the $50. I refused though because I as being petty intentionally. I'm not proud of that.

I waited, and spoke with a friend on the phone. Maybe 20 minutes pass and I re-order the Lyft. The guilt starting to get to me. I get a text from a "mutual friend" telling me to think rationally and that he doesn't want to see anyone get hurt over fight. I told the friend I re-ordered the Lyft already to which the friend says, "not from what I am being told." I told that friend they can come pick them up if they're so concerned but I ordered the Lyft for this grown man and it's on its way.

In order to not deal with it anymore, I walked outside. Paul looked shaken and upset. He told me he was overheated and that he is sensitive to heat, so he might pass out. It's funny, in a year and half I wasn't aware of that, and he never had a hard-time walking to and from where-ever non-essential errand/friend visit/cigarette run in the midst of a hot summer day, but 3am sitting on a bench outside my door was "overheating". Nonetheless, I went in and got him water. I told him I was sorry and that I was acting out of anger, the Lyft arrived and I saw him off.

I went back inside and cried myself to sleep.

The next morning I messaged him and I apologized again, I said I was unkind and that I acted out of anger. It was then we officially confirmed the relationship was over. He asked me to mail him back a key necklace he had gotten me, which I thought was petty. But whatever, I mailed it back.

I don't regret ending the relationship.

I do regret how I ended the relationship.

Here's the thing. Paul is one of the best human beings to ever cross my life. I loved him. But I acted strictly out of anger. I made him feel unsafe in that moment, even though it was only perceived, and I am certain it was humiliating. It probably was very painful being dejected by someone he (says he) loved and someone who loved him. I know it hurt.

I guess that WAS the point at the time.

I apologized for it then and the day after. I apologized for it again. A week later he asked if we could still be friends, I said yes but we would need to stay back for some time, while we heal. I unfollowed him on my social media.

I did not just fall OUT of love immediately. It doesn't happen like that.

He eventually vaguebooked me claiming I (though I wasn't tagged) wasn't true to my activism because I was going to leave him at risk by "making" him walk from my home in Riverview to Citrus Park. In his post, it was a "good thing my friend stepped in" to prevent that. I'll never forget that. That friend, by the way, texted me about 2-3 minutes AFTER I re-ordered the Lyft. I was under no obligation to pay for an adults Lyft ride. I still believe that today. But I hate that I hurt Paul that way and made him feel unsafe or that I did not care about his safety.

We talked about the not-so-vaguebook post, he said he did not know I re-ordered the Lyft before the friend's unnecessary intervention and apologized for the post. I told him it was fine, of course, but that he was the one who reached out to me to be friends--so we either are friends or you want to trash talk me, it can only be one or the other.

We worked it out.

I still wasn't out of love and I think that's why it bothered me. In fact, I still struggled with it and in 2018, I actually reached out. I did. I said I hadn't stopped feeling those feelings and wanted to try to build a friendship again and see if that goes anywhere, romantically or platonically. He said while he had no resentment and we were good, he felt our friendship was best placed in the digital realm it was at the time, only communicating (seldomly) online. I said I respect that and I went on my way.

Today, we don't really interact. We're still connected on Facebook and it's been almost 3 years since it ended. I have no hard feelings toward him and we've had some good digital conversations since then. I let him know some of the things he's taught me and he's told me some of the wonderful things I taught him.

Paul's presence in my life was a gift--and I hope I was one in his overall.

It ended poorly. And that's where my regret is. If I could do it all over again, I would have not let it got to the point it did. I would have been tender in how I said goodbye. I would have told him everything I think about him but that I needed my boundaries because it was toxic. Not that he was toxic. It was toxic. I wish I had given him the respect he deserved instead of that dramatic, painful and anger-ridden goodbye. But I am human. And that's a reason, not an excuse. I have told him this, if you're wondering. I think he believes me. I think he understands, looking back, as to what happened and why. I'm sure he has acted out of anger and you, the reader, have. It's not about excuses.

This isn't intended for mass consumption nor is it intended for Paul to read. If he did, that would be fine, but I am writing this for my own healing.

I regret the way I said goodbye. I regret that I acted so petty. Because although the love was not meant to be, it was genuine, it was strong and it was passionate. I don't regret loving or knowing Paul.

I only regret the goodbye.

Prohibition: How Racism and Xenophobia Turned America Dry

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of racial, immigrant and gendered violence, slurs and epithets, outdated language, addiction, violence

When you think of Prohibition, the most common stories told today revolve around women and suffrage. Women who were subjected to the brutality of the working class man, who stopped by a rowdy saloon before coming home and at best, neglecting his family and at worse, completing acts of domestic violence.

These stories are true. Alcohol was the scapegoat to the toxic masculinity and sexism that women faced--and these stories were usually told by white women. 1800's society barely cared about white women and certainly didn't care about any other women. While alcohol caused an array of problems, the actuality was the issue was far more insidious than any substance. Laws at the time gave women virtually no rights. Once she was married, she was her husbands property. At the time, women had almost no rights to divorce, no custodial rights over children and no rights to own property. The 19th amendment hadn't passed yet, until 1919, so women couldn't vote in most states.

This is why Prohibition and Suffrage is often linked. When told in this context, it makes Prohibition almost a glamorize feminist movement, a win for an oppressed underling, hated and disrespected by society.

But Prohibition, like all movements, is far more complex than that.

And like all movements in the United States, one of the most successful driving forces for the cause was xenophobia (hate of immigrants) and racism. These two famous causes tied together Prohibitionists of all political affiliations. Prohibitions who opposed suffrage supported it because xenophobia and racism. White suffragettes were willing to use xenophobia and racism to further push their agenda, almost seamlessly.

Throughout the 1880's, the United States started to see massive changes. Black Americans were theoretically removed from servitude due to the 13th Amendment in 1865. Reconstruction had ignited the racial fears of Americans, mainly in the South but across the country (the "good" North was not in any stretch of the imagination absent racism--and many abolitionists ardently opposed slavery but still supported racism.)

In addition to this, the 1880's saw an influx of Southern European immigrants. These immigrants were very different from the Anglo Saxon normative colonizers the country was designed to support. And now, 100 years after the independence of the United States, the White Anglo Saxon Protestants felt their country that they knowingly and intentionally built just for them was at risk. This is the crux of American xenophobia.

Today, white immigrants are welcomed with open arms, whether Northern or Southern European. Black and brown immigrants from Africa, the Islands, the Middle East, Central America and Latin America are not so well received. Many factors drive these prejudices. Socialism or communism is used as a reason to oppose these immigrants. Sharia Law is used, with a fear of the Muslim religion and "terrorism". Drugs are used, with a fear of cartels and criminals.

This wasn't true in the 1800's. Southern Europeans, such as Ashkenazi Jews, Italians etc. were not welcomed. At the time, Catholicism was the religion of fear--with the Protestant nation claiming it was an assault on the American way of life. Mediterranean culture, Latin languages, non-Protestant beliefs were all non-desirable at the time.

"Their form of Catholicism was also seen as different. All Catholics faced prejudice in America, but in the Mediterranean, faith was blended with other kinds of beliefs, some of them pre-Christian, such as belief in the evil eye, and in good and evil spirits. The Italian Festas — annual public celebrations and parades of the saints — were also glaring novelties at the time."

Irish, also heavily Catholic, were at one time largely discriminated against (but were never slaves--white Americans today try to use anti-Irish sentiments of the past to "justify" why Black Americans need to get over it--and that is never okay.) Nonetheless, 19th Century Irish immigrants faced their own brand of discrimination, mainly due to their Catholic roots.

In the 1890's, New Orleans saw a case of Anti-Italianism involving the death of a Police Chief David Hennessy.  As he died, he allegedly put the blame on the Dagoes, an Anti-Italian slur. Suddenly, the Italian population found themselves at the hands of an angry mob, wanting justice. The population there, specifically Sicilian, was of about 300,000 Italian immigrants. Based on growing animosity towards these Sicilian immigrants, and a widely known feud between two immigrant families, newspapers freely reported that Italians were to blame for this chief's sudden death. Suddenly, hundreds of Italian immigrants were rounded up, even though there was no clear evidence they had anything to do with it, and taken into the jails. Protests began forming around the jail from Anglo Americans, demanding immediate justice. Several were eventually tried for the crime, all of which were not adjudicated guilty.

"The message was clear: If the New Orleans justice system couldn’t punish Italians, the people of New Orleans would have to do so instead. In response, thousands of angry residents gathered near the jail. Impassioned speakers whipped the mob into a frenzy, painting Italian immigrants as criminals who needed to be driven out of the city. Finally, the mob broke into the city’s arsenal, grabbing guns and ammunition. As they ran toward the prison, they shouted, “We want the Dagoes!” "

Known today as the 1891 New Orleans lynching, the eleven defendants were killed extrajudicially by an Anglo mob--and many Sicilian immigrants deflected, abandoning New Orleans. (Some of which came to Tampa, Florida's own Ybor City.)

So wait--what does all this have to do with Prohibition? Well, everything.

Today, we have an understanding of the very racist intentions of the War on Drugs and the Drug Enforcement Agency.  Prohibition was not without anti-Blackness, and although there were Black prohibitionists, there were also white supremacist prohibitions (it was a very complex movement...)

White women and purity was an often discussed intention behind racist and xenophobic laws, especially after the abolition of slavery. Long before abolition, any white woman who was part of the abolition societies was accused of having sexual desires toward Black men--which was considered abhorrent. As such, many anti-abolition minds used the anti-miscegenation mindset as a reason to oppose abolition, for it would surely weaken the pure Anglo bloodline.

When the 13th amendment passed, reconstruction began...and when the federal troops were withdrawn, an uptick in extralegislative and extrajudicial lynchings increased to restore an Anglo white America, or "American values". Popular theories began to emerge, including eugenics. Prohibition was another popular value. The Ku Klux Klan propagandized Black men as "brutes" and insisted that alcohol brought out the beast within him, making him an ardent threat to white women. Racist white women and men, even those who weren't concerned about the women's rights angle, began to support Prohibition for their "safety."

"The Ku Klux Klan’s support of Prohibition gave the organization a way to promote its views and a way to perpetrate state-sanctioned violence against people of color, Catholics and Jews. “The war on alcohol united Progressives and Protestants, federal agents and Klansmen,” writes Kelefa Sanneh for The New Yorker.

The American government created an entire Prohibition Bureau intended to enforce alcohol-free living. However, this bureau selectively targeted groups that were perceived as inherently corrupt, like poor people, immigrants, and African Americans. Remember, the Jazz Age unfolded during Prohibition–plenty of people were drinking plenty of liquor."

Sound like the War on Drugs--because it is very similar. 

In previous work, I have criticized the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony for their willingness to team up and expel racism and xenophobia in their work. Although both died before the beginning of National Prohibition, their work speaks volumes to the anti-Blackness and anti-immigrant notions that built Prohibition. Through the effort of Prohibition, progressives, suffragettes, xenophobes and racists all teamed up--and if you team up with xenophobes and racists, well, then you are one. 

These beliefs were deeply built into temperance, which is the parent movement of the Prohibition movement. James Cannon Jr., a Bishop with the Methodist Church, was also a leader in the temperance movement. In 1909, he took on a leadership role in the Virginia State Anti-Saloon League, the most notable and successful lobby group for Prohibition. And this is what he had to say: “the Italians, the Sicilians, the Poles, and Russian Jews. That kind has given us a stomach ache. We have been unable to assimilate such people in our national life, so we shut the door on them. But Smith says ‘give me that kind of people.’ He wants the kind of dirty people you find today on the sidewalks of New York.”

Mary Hunt, a leader in the Women's Christian Temperance Union, similarly said: " “the enormous increase of immigrant population flooding us from the old world, men and women who have brought to our shores and into our politics old world habits and ideas [favorable to alcohol].’ Her writings made frequent references to this “undesirable immigration” and “these immigrant hordes.”

Alabama Congressman, Richard Hobson, in 1914, had this to say: “Liquor will actually make a brute out of a [black person], causing him to commit unnatural crimes. The effect is the same on the white man, though the white man being further evolved, it takes longer time to reduce him to the same level.”

Racism and xenophobia has not come close to ending. While the immigrant we are trained to hate has changed and the way we communicate and codify anti-Blackness looks different and supposedly more discreet, these two tools exist in every movement we have that intends to preserve "American values", the largest example being the War on Drugs.

Pink Triangle: Homosexual Victims of the Holocaust Deserve to be Remembered

January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Holocaust was an act of extreme genocide toward Jewish members of German and European society with an intent of perceiving an Aryan culture. While we know in history, Jewish people faced abhorrent violences through death camps, segregation and oppression in Germany and throughout the WWII European land, it is often forgotten or minimized that gay and queer folks (namely men), disabled folks, Black folks, Roma folks and even certain Christian sects like Jehovah's Witness faced horror and death as well. Oppression is never a contest. Where ever it exists, it is abhorrent. Whether it is the mass incarceration and police brutality faced by Black Americans, the killings of transgender Black women, the missing and murder Indigenous women, the Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism throughout the land or the gender pay gap, oppression must be addressed and eradicated at all costs. My saying Black trans women are the most likely to be a victim of a fatal hate crime doesn't negate that I could one day become a victim of a fatal crime. Just as well, Jewish victims were the most likely to be targeted and acknowledging that non-Jewish victims existed and deserve to be acknowledged doesn't change these facts.

I recall being "reemed out" by white Jewish members of a "intersectional feminist" group for declaring that if I had existed and lived in Nazi Germany, it is possible that I, too, would have landed victim in the Holocaust.

Acknowledging other victims doesn't take away from another's victimhood. And to this day, gay victims (pink triangle) of the Holocaust are still misunderstood and unheard about. The individual in the group informed me that non-Jewish gays were not included in these roundups, so I'd have been safe, but that is historically inaccurate. Rest assured, I have no desire to take anyone's place in oppression and the oppression Olympics yield no results that I've seen worthy of writing home about. As such, for this Holocaust Remembrance Day I will center the victims of the Pink Triangle. I can honor these victims, both queer Jews and queer non-Jews who faced victimization within the horrors of the Holocaust and continue to face victimization at the hand of Neo-Nazis today.

And if that makes someone upset, all I can say is "oh well". Hopefully they'll find a Neo-Nazi to take it out on.

Why were non-Jewish gay victims targeted? The theory was even Aryan gays were a threat to the Aryan nation because they would not be able to reproduce, thus threatening the growth of the "pure white bloodline." This theory still exists among Neo-Nazi groups. (And no, the existence of gay Neo-Nazis and white gay Nazi apologists doesn't change that fact.)

Below are some articles about the Pink Triangle and snippets of interest in relation to each article. These articles center specifically gay victims of the Holocaust, which could be Jewish or non-Jewish. It's important to know that other victims existed by virtue of who they were, as referenced above, but they won't be centered in the snippets, they may be referenced in the articles:

The Faces of Auschwitz: Non-Jewish Victims
"Under the Weimar government, centuries-old prohibitions against homosexuality had been overlooked, but this tolerance ended violently when the SA (Storm Troopers) began raiding gay bars in 1933. Homosexual intent became just cause for prosecution. The Nazis arrested German and Austrian male homosexuals—there was no systematic persecution of lesbians—and interned them in concentration camps, where they were forced to wear special yellow armbands and later pink triangles." -Yad Vesham

Jewish Virtual Library
"Because Hitler’s plan for a great Master Race had no room for any homosexuals, many males from all nations, including Germany, were persecuted, tortured and executed. Hitler even searched his own men and found suspected homosexuals that were sent to concentration camps wearing their SS uniforms and medals. The homosexual inmates were forced to wear pink triangles on their clothes so they could be easily recognized and further humiliated inside the camps. Between 5,000 to 15,000 homosexuals died in concentration camps during the Holocaust."-Holocaust Forgotten, Yad Vesham

Pink Triangles and Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals
"Even before it was built, Phillips says, USHMM made a conscious decision to remember all the victims of the Holocaust, a category that includes non-Jewish Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma and homosexuals in addition to Jews."

"In the eyes of the Nazis, homosexuality weakened the Aryan race, in part because gay men did not contribute to the effort to increase the Aryan birthrate, having "physically withdrawn their 'generative power' from society," reads another panel. They "feared [homosexuality] as an 'infection' that could become an 'epidemic,' particularly among the nation's vulnerable youth." One Nazi diagram, for example, showed the "contagion" moving from one individual to another 28 people by means of "seduction."

"During the Nazi regime, Phillips says, roughly 100,000 men were arrested under section 175, and roughly half of those received prison sentences after appearing in court. Some men were institutionalized in mental hospitals and some, "perhaps hundreds—were castrated under court order or coercion."

Between 5,000 and 15,000 men were sent to concentration camps, which fell outside the legal system. There, they were made to don pink triangles to identify them as homosexuals. In German camps, where there were few Jews (most Jews were sent to camps in the eastern territories), gay men were at the bottom of the camp hierarchy and other prisoners feared association with them."

"Because homosexuality continued to be criminalized after the war in Germany and elsewhere and even when and where it was not considered criminal, stigma persisted, very few gay victims of Nazi persecution came forward to tell their stories. "That's a large reason why," says Phillips, "we know very little about the gay survivors." -Stav Ziv

The Pink Triangle
"WHEN I WENT to high school in the 1960s in New York City, history classes did not teach us that the Nazis persecuted gays. In fact, I remember being taught that the Nazis were homosexuals. I also remember seeing a U.S. government propaganda film, produced with the facilities of Hollywood during World War II and shown to American moviegoers, that included a description of the Nazis as homosexuals."

"THE EXHIBIT OPENS with a history of section 175 of the criminal code, imposed in 1871, that criminalized homosexual relations by men. (It was never illegal to be a lesbian). After World War I, many gay Germans gravitated to Berlin, where there was a prodigious underground gay community and culture. The most prominent figure of that time was Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay Jewish sexologist who was founder of the Institute of Sexual Science. The notorious Nazi book-burning of 1933 was started with Hirschfeld’s library and institute."

"The Nazis were concerned with the decreasing German birthrate as well as what they considered un-Aryan behavior of homosexuals. They also believed that while men might not be able to change their behavior, lesbians could still be forced to produce children for the Reich. "

" As the Nazis expanded their territory across Europe and Africa, they did not expand the persecution of gays outside ‘Greater Germany.’ As far as the Nazis were concerned if non-Aryans were homosexual, that meant less procreation for “inferior races.”

" While lesbians were not persecuted per se, they were forced into the closet in order to survive. There is only one known case of a lesbian sent to a concentration camp, and she was a madam in a prostitution ring, so was given the black triangle of the habitual criminal."

"AFTER THE WAR, the Allies repealed many laws promulgated by the Nazis. However, they left the Nazi version of Section 175 on the books in West Germany. So little is known about those persecuted, and so little ephemera exists, primarily because gays were still considered criminals. Some with the pink triangle were not released in 1945 and had to serve the remaining years of their sentence in prison. Most remained closeted for the rest of their lives and never told about their persecution by the Nazis.

AFTER THE WAR, the Allies repealed many laws promulgated by the Nazis. However, they left the Nazi version of Section 175 on the books in West Germany. So little is known about those persecuted, and so little ephemera exists, primarily because gays were still considered criminals. Some with the pink triangle were not released in 1945 and had to serve the remaining years of their sentence in prison. Most remained closeted for the rest of their lives and never told about their persecution by the Nazis."-Jeffrey Kassel