How to survive the crush of the crowd
Score: Team Trans: 1 vs. Badly behaved white girl: 0
If ever you doubt you are loved, don't listen to the robin's breath singing outside your window.
Instead, go to a concert.
Two criteria:
It must be a beloved musician, so there will be a crowd.
Go with someone you’re fighting with.
Upon entering the space (don't arrive too early, or your feet will hurt and you won't make it), take your place.
For example, find a small space near the right wall.
Scootch in.
Notice the six-inch personal space bubble around you and your partner, your date, or your friend, which is radically different from the distance you usually prefer.
You are careful not to bump those around you.
They are careful not to bump you.
Everyone has their tiny space.
Let's say you've been in conflict with your date and are trying to work through it.
Let's assume this is your first outing together in several weeks, and it feels risky and vulnerable.
Let's know you feel tender, raw, and agitated from emotional processing.
That's when her voice scrapes your ears: white woman vocal fry.
'Hey-ah, you can't see-ah, maybe just try right there-ah," she directs her friend right into your personal space.
Too old for the bad behavior that is about to ensue, but young enough she still thinks she can get away with doing whatever she wants, trading the currency of ‘beauty.’
You know the verbal instructions are NOT for her friend's benefit but for yours. "Here I come, you better move over" is the unspoken bully subtext.
How do you know this?
Do your witchy powers tell you?
Or maybe you've been at enough shows with enough women using pretty girl privilege.
Or perhaps you used to try that shit yourself.
Scratch that. You would never.
Why did she pick you?
You have theories about ageism, fatphobia, transphobia, but basically the answer is the same:
Bullies pick someone they think is weak.
After her friend wiggles into a minuscule crack, the speaker puts her body in the exact space yours is already occupying.
You have choices here, don't you?
Choose wisely because your survival depends on it.
Do the math, take your time, and show your work on your paper.
One body plus one body equals not enough room in the same space.
One body must move.
Will it be yours?
Math: let’s use the golden mean.
Golden: you feel the bright shine of your warrior heart flare into the night.
Mean: fight this bitch.
Instead of stepping back, your solution is a half-step forward.
"Leaning into conflict" would be one way to name this.
But nothing happens.
Examine the quotient: more than just holding your ground is needed for fry-girl to notice she is impinging your freedom.
Assess your opponent
You've got one hundred pounds on her.
She does yoga.
The crowd will catch you if you fall.
Multiply the damage.
Jiggle and shake, along with the music, into her personal space.
Ooh, she doesn't like it.
Make it known that you cannot be bullied.
Make it uncomfortable.
Until she turns to you and accuses you of putting your body in the same space as hers.
"I know what you're doing-ah,” she sizzles. “Have some respect-ah!"
What you know about respect would fill a small leather suitcase, a valise grip, a steamer trunk, and a cargo ship.
The golden mean calculator spits out the answer: “….
But before you can say it, your person flies into the space.
Crashes into her body.
Pushes her out of your space.
Later, you'll learn that she grappled.
Tried to wrap a leg hook.
But that move backfired.
She lost her balance.
Toppled into those in front of her.
Oops.
The people she knocked into turn on her, they’re pissed.
She has troubled her own waters.
But also, don't fuck with Gen X.
We literally invented mosh pits.
If a youngster starts shit with someone bigger and fiercer than them, well, fuck around and find out, I guess.
But here’s the important part of this story:
The person you've been fighting with is now fighting for you.
You spend the rest of the concert wondering how to adjust to this new reality.
Someone in this world will fight on your behalf.
Even though they never have before.
Even though they might never again.
You feel shaky, like the ground you’ve been walking on all these years is suddenly completely different.
When you talk with them later, they'll tell you how they saw it as an opportunity to protect you.
How they wanted to use their body to shield yours.
How seeing someone fuck with you triggered their power, their willingness to choose.
They chose you.
You are loved by them.
It's a new dawn once you've survived the crush.