Guest post: Our reporter in Brighton
Originally a comment by guest on Windownight.
I’m here at Filia and we’re hardly noticing the handful of young men hanging out in front of the conference centre making a lot of noise. The police seem to be doing a good job of keeping order, and patrolling temporary fencing set up to protect us going in and out of the building (and, now, to block off the front of the building from any repetition of the vandalism, as well as to keep them from pounding on the windows, as has happened at previous women’s gatherings).
The statement of Trans Pride Brighton (or bash back, I don’t remember which now), said that they feared retaliation and believed the ‘trans pride centre’ in Brighton would be attacked…as if any of us even knew where it was let alone had any interest in playing Sharks and Jets with these guys. And they ended their statement with something like ‘paint washes off but blood doesn’t’, which doesn’t actually make any sense but sounds like a threat.
Between the violence and the threats and the not knowing how to wash blood off things, they haven’t left us in any doubt that they’re men.
Update from day 2 – many more menacing masked noisy men, feels much more intimidating today but police and security still seem to be maintaining order. Couple of men tried to ‘talk’ and give flyers, I was wearing headphones so not paying attention but their schtick seems to be now ‘Filia is not feminist’.
Well they must know best, right?
I vaguely remember a meme that was something like “Don’t test me I know a hundred ways to get blood off all surfaces” Or words to that effect.
To be fair to the morons, it’s possible the ‘blood’ line wasn’t meant as a threat, but merely a hyperbolic complaint–“Sure, we threw paint all over everything, but our enemies are spilling our blood as we speak!” Moronic, as I say, but not necessarily intended as a threat.