scrubjayspeaks

[Content note: discussion of non-consensual touching, ableism, intracommunity politics, and policing.]

So my semi-local Pride has its main events this weekend, with the all-ages street fair sort of thing today. And it always falls on the same Sunday as the July meeting of my succulent club and is a five-minute walk away from that. So I usually go check it out for a half hour before the meeting, which is about as much time as it's capable of occupying my attention. A block of booths and some people-watching. Allegedly performances, though I have never once seen anyone on the stage while there.

This year, I have had An Incident.

Have you seen the rainbow "MOM HUGS" t-shirts available? The O in MOM is usually a rainbow heart. Cute concept. Queer people often lose family ties; supportive strangers will offer a few minutes of substitute family acceptance. Great. Fine.

As I'm strolling past booths, I sense someone at my left shoulder, uncomfortably close. I think that this is just a traffic situation, so I'm sort of moving over to the right and glancing to see who I'm bumping into or something. Except then. Then there are...hands on me? Someone is rubbing at my upper arm and saying...something?

Some woman, short enough that her face is pretty close to the level of said upper arm which she is stroking, is offering me a hug. I politely smile (to be fair, this may have come out as a polite grimace, but look, I am half-feral on a good day and facial expressions are hard) and say no thank you. And I visibly cringe away from her continued touching.

Loudly--not shouting, but at top speaking volume--this woman says, "SHE DOESN'T WANT A HUG," to, idk, the rest of her associates? (We'll return to them in a moment.)

So, look. Like I said, I think the concept of "mom hugs" is cute and all. That's fine. I'm glad that's a service you're willing to provide. Plus five points for good intentions.

But minus about a million for poor execution.

There are two things going on here. First off, congratulations! You've once again provided evidence for the truth that queer spaces are often overtly unfriendly to disabled people. I'm neuroatypical in ways that make me not love being touched unexpectedly or by people I don't know. I'm also physically disabled in ways that can make touch, even just skin contact, distressingly painful. (And I'm having a fucking flare, so this isn't just a theoretical objection right now. Ow.) To say nothing of the broader issues of bodily autonomy and consent and trauma and just--

Don't touch people without checking in with them first. Just? Don't??? Don't repeatedly caress the arm of a stranger in a crowd, I cannot believe I have to explain this concept to grown-ass humans.

Second, why the hell do you think it's okay to, what, publicly shame me for rejecting your offer of a hug? Absolutely anyone is free to accept or reject your offer of a hug. If someone declines, politely move the fuck on with your day. Don't announce it to the general populace, as though I'm somehow making this an unsafe space for you. As though I'm doing something wrong.

Offer hugs; listen to the answer; behave accordingly.

Why are you making a big thing out of it? Are you going to be docked points or something by your compatriots for failing to hug? Will I mess up your stats unless you make clear to the refs that I refused and thus shouldn't be counted against your hug score? GTFO.

And the kicker is that, in making this loud announcement, you also misgendered me.

Now, here's the deal. I get misgendered all the time, and I'm not even worked up about it. I know perfectly well what I look like. I know how I present; I know how I'm built. I don't like being misgendered, but I don't hold it against the general public. The general public does not have the framework to even begin to parse my gender. It's fine.

You, Hug Mom, are not the general public. (Theoretically, anyway*.) At the risk of sounding like a goddamn meme in the mouth of a teenager, why are you assuming my gender? You're at PRIDE! People are dressed in nonbinary flags, they've got trans flag face paint, and the adorable trans boy over there is topless with some binding tape and stickers covering his chest. We ain't exactly being shy about being other-than-cis today.

And the thing is, if you were somehow unsure of my receptiveness to your hug, you could have said, "You don't want a hug?" That would have sidestepped the issue entirely. But you made a scene. You pointed me out, for no apparent purpose other than to make a big deal out of my rejection of your "offer." And you used gendered language to do it. Because you look at me and you think you know what's what. Cool cool leaving now.

So I wander off, muttering not all that quietly to myself about BEING TOUCHED BY STRANGERS THANKS NO THANKS. And as I make the circuit back up the other side of that aisle, I approach a booth that has a small army in front of it. More women in mom hug shirts. All lined up in a way that would otherwise look like a barricade. I actually tried to figure out if there was a somehow objectionable booth which they were walling off with their bodies.

(There was a street preacher of some sort, because there always is, who had a half dozen people loudly performing such a service, walling him off and shouting over anything he might say.)

But as far as I can tell, that was the mom booth. Their weird lineup was intentional, a showcase of Moms Available to Hug. I can only assume it was supposed to be welcoming. They spilled past the boundaries of their booth and into the spaces of the two on either side of them.

I looked at the line of moms who apparently think hugs should be obligatory. I decided that the booths around them weren't anything I couldn't live without seeing up close. I crossed back to the other side of the aisle, putting the main stream of traffic between me and them, and I got the hell out of there.

Because I didn't want to be touched without my consent again, by strangers who think it's somehow suspect or shameful for me to decline. Because I didn't feel safe or welcome in that space anymore.

Which was kind of the opposite of the point of the day, wasn't it?

It's not news that the queer community has some motherfucking work to do on the subject of disability. And I don't really expect my rinky-dink town's pride event to be a shining beacon of progress on that front. But for fuck's sake: do I really have to worry about nonconsensual touching from the goddamn queer community? Really?

Also, on a loosely related note, the place was crawling with on-duty cops. They were stationed at both entrances, milling through the crowd, and manning their own booth. While I might be willing to accept the possibility of nuance on the subject of cops in general, giving them such a...ROBUST presence at Pride is just a bad look. Doubly so when this is an area heavily populated by migrant farm workers. Right now, the last thing that's going to make me feel safe is large numbers of cops in a place full of vulnerable people. Several people carried "no cops at pride" signs, so I was by no means alone in this sentiment.

It was supposed to be an all-ages street festival, utterly innocuous. Vapid fun. An excuse to dress up, an excuse to buy overpriced pins and rainbow sprinkle cookies. It's not supposed to be like this. I'm unaccountably disappointed by the whole sorry affair.

*I will not speculate about the orientation of this or any other of the hug moms. I will not excuse the queer community from its responsibilities to its own disabled members by writing this off as a straight ally failing. While it would be easy to do so, it would give too much goddamn credit where none is due.