Being Hate-Crimed
I grew up in this world being told that I can be anything you want and that it’s the land of the free, I learned recently, it’s only a select people that are free and you can be anything you want but not without repercussions.
Last night I was hate-crimed you would think that I’d be being the gay and doing the crime, but nope not this time. At my night shift I was working behind the counter handing out skates to individuals when a group comes up and are giggling and shit. They approach me not to get skates but to ask whether I’m a girl or a boy. In perspective as a pretty openly human and labelled being on this earth, I try to make the conversation as short as it can be, and to just give them the answer they want. So instead of expressing that my pronouns are they/them, I instead say “I am a girl”. Their faces in disbelief say that they don’t believe me. I say “I don’t know what to tell you”. They wander off keep subtlety teasing me from a distance, then approach me again just one of them tall, long hair, now seeing his description i could make him a little more insecure by reducing his masculinity but I wouldn’t want to adhere to that nonsense. Tall guy approaches me asks me my ages and was like 24 (which I’m actually 22. I don’t like giving all my deets to complete strangers) and was like “why? what about you?” And he said “I’m not saying… wtf” I said, (now let me be clear I regret making the arrogant comment but to be fair it usually makes the other person fuck off when ppl are staring at me going into the women’s restroom) “I was asking because if you were over 18 I’d show you if you care so much about it”. Bro got very spicy very quickly. Speaking straight gibberish trash about how his girl wouldn’t like that very much and that you are such a bitch for saying that, that’s crazy, etc. That’s when I was like “if you don’t need anything you can head off, buh-bye now” and the group started walking off and bro says under his breath “fuckin fag”.
You know I really thought I could handle it but I went into the back and started crying because I hadn’t had an experience like that really since high school. Back then I almost became unsensitized to it but clearly that wore off. I pulled myself together and finished my shift. Before I could finish my shift while I was vacuuming my manager pulled me aside and told me that I had to talk to him. This brought up major post traumatic stress from high school pulling me to the deans office when I was presumably in the wrong. He told me that a group came up to him and said that I had been flirting and hitting on a minor. Now that was untrue, although I didn’t know his age the sly comment was most definitely not flirtatious. He said the group clearly made me out to be the bad guy in the situation and that he wanted to know my truth because the group had had multiple offences, picking on people and starting fights. Me in tears told him the story up until the sly comment, and when I told him the sly comment I told him that I’ve been thinking about how i could have said something different because it was inappropriate. I then asked if they also redacted one of them calling me fag, and he said they did not say that. I said although under his breath he could have said something else, I’m pretty sure that he said it. But I did have a kid on the bungee jumping attraction repeatedly say “I’m gonna shit my pants” but in reality they were probably saying “I wanna see my parents” because that makes more sense. But I digress.
After our little talk he says he understands the comments and ignorant remarks that people can say because he had a close individual who is gay and that he gets the hate and stupid comments all the time. My manager said he understands the situation and says that I am not fired, which to be honest I thought I was. He said “next time, immediately come to me” I said alright, thank you.
I was doing the rest of my shift really mopey resisting the urge to break down again. Once I was finished with my shift, I signed off to my manager saying “I’ll be more giddy tmrw”. Then at 11:34pm I headed out to drive home and noticed first that my license plate was missing, walked faster and then noticed most of my stickers were keyed or scratched out. Anything relatively gay including my Hawaii rainbow sticker, my Kynd sticker, and feminist sticker. I dropped my stuff and broke down crying turned back and barely making it out of my mouth I told my manager that mg car got vandalized and my license plate was stolen.
I find it silly that they didn’t scratch out the HIV/AIDS awareness ribbon because their asses were uneducated.
My manager who so sweet helped me call an officer down here to report the disturbance and hate crime. But there is a little light in this situation because my manager and coworkers and I had a great laugh when the person taking my information over the phone asked for vehicles description then asked what my license plate number was and I couldn’t keep a straight face, looked to my right and everyone was halfway on the ground laughing their asses off. I said “I don’t know my plate by heart”. Fast forward to the cop arriving at the scene, very sweet person. The officer was very nice and straight to the point (well, yeah I guess I’ll keep that). As I was filing a report he and one of my coworkers found my license plate in a ditch maybe 50 feet from my car. That meant I could drive home but the charges I would file against them would not have stolen tag anymore which I was fine. The officer asked how much the sticker were and I said ranging from 5-10 dollars each and he counted them up and said that I can charge them for property damage. The last form I filed was something you would get for a suspension in high school. Name date and what happened. I asked if I could bring it home because I’d have a clearer mind set, and he said yes. So he went on his way and we will meet back today about the situation. He gave me a Victim’s Rights Pamphlet. In my head I was thinking “I’m gonna make this better and just give out victims rights handbooks to random strangers. Add it as a piece in my portfolio, call it ‘redesigning gpd’”. But anyways after that I went inside and my coworkers and managers were just chillin playing games on their phone and sharing memes with each other, and they said that they do this often and sometimes stay until 2am. I stayed until 1:30am with them and then drove home.
Overall this experience was an emotional rollercoaster but in the end I’m just glad my new work environment is with people I get along with and that are really kind souls. I’m really happy to be working this job and to be surrounded by the people in it.
