But it gets a little bit heavy, so here’s the content warnings. (Softly:) Content warning: Feminist theory. (Increasingly loudly:) Content warning: Academia. Content warning: Terfs. Content warning: Europeans. (Screaming towards the university hall): Content warning: The definition of woman. Content Warning: ANTI-TRANSGENDER HATE. Content warning: ANTI-TRANSGENDER VIOLENCE. CONTENT WARNING: ANTI-TRANSGENDER GENOCIDE.

(Happily warmly again): I have three things to tell you: one about the terfs, one about the fascists, and one about you.

1. Terre des Femmes

On their Facebook event, Terre des Femmes says:

Die Polizei ist informiert und vor Ort. Der Weg INS Haus wird durch die Polizei gesichert, so dass sich unsere Gäste keine Gedanken machen müssen.

You can tell a lot about what kind of woman a supposed “feminist” is protecting, when they assure their folk they can feel safer because many cops will be around.

Terre des Femmes advocates for a legislative ban on Muslim head gear. In other words, these white German supposed “feminists” advocate giving white German cops the right to violently enforce State power over immigrant bodies. It never fails: Scratch a terf, find a racist.

(increasingly angrily:) On her analysis of Terre’s colonialist rhetoric about the “Muslima in Deutschland”, Saskia Metz leverages the theoretical work of the great Indian feminist Chandra Talpade Mohanty re: the category “oppressed Third World Women”, which flattens our individuality and our intersectional struggles under a single binary equation, male=penis=oppressor, female=vagina=victim, so that any of us with a lifestory which challenges their binary theory get denied our own consent, our autonomy, our voice, our personhood itself: So that it doesn’t matter if the woman wants to wear a hijab, or do sex work, or go out in a short skirt, or transition; the enlightened First World feminist vanguard knows our oppression better than us. (Metz 2020, “Eine Analyse der Rhethorik von Terre des Femmes e.V. zum Kopftuchverbot”, (screaming ever louder) i s s n two one nINE TWO DASH FIVE TWO——

(silence.)

It’s hard to even care, isn’t it?

You, like me, are still in deep grief. We are grieving for our dead murdered in our day of grieving, we aren’t even allowed to grieve, like we aren’t allowed our own names in our tombstones. One of my partners said this: “The worst part is I’m not even phased. With all that the U.S. fascists have been saying, with all that the U.K. TERFs have been saying, it was so obviously a matter of time. I feel like the most cynical Cassandra, here looking at my watch, sipping coffee asking, ‘did it happen yet?’”

And the shitty racist Islamophic cop-loving white-ass First-World Fortress Europe regressive pseudofeminists from Terre des Femmes have the gall, the the gall, the GALL, to come here today of all days agitate for the Bundesrepublik Deutschland government to impose on us which gender we really are.

Now Terre des Femmes says:

“Was ist eine Frau? Die Veranstaltung wird das Thema Auswirkungen des geplanten Selbstbestimmungsgesetzes auf Frauenrechte konstruktiv reflektieren. Ein ~respektvoller~ Umgang miteinander ist zu jeder Zeit unabdingbare Voraussetzung.”

FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU Terre des Femmes, you want respect? While we’re walking in DEATH as death surrounds us, in the pit of our grief, in the abyss of our collective trauma, you come tell the cops and the nazis that we trannies are abusers and predators, in the city of the Frontline Skinheads and the Fortress Europe nazi demos, after a 15-year-old girl gets lynched on the streets then misgendered by police, you come demand respect?? I’ll tell you was ist eine Frau, eine Frau ist meu pau is what it is. A woman is my DICK.

“Ah here we see the phallic rape culture enactment of the violent trans-identifie—” FUCK. YOU. I am DONE.

You, First-World colonial supremacists gorging on the wealth you plundered from my country and a hundred others, you who cannot hide your DISGUST for our body and our desire so you dress it up as supposed “feminism”, you who call my sisters “sex traffick victims” so that you can deport them back to Hell, just so that you don’t have ever to look at the proudly exposed trans body of the Latina travesti, like you don’t want to look at the proudly covered body of the Islamic feminist, because our existence doesn’t fit your shitty self-serving malformed theory. I have no time to argue with you, I am too busy teaching my queer kids how to stop bleedings from gunshot wounds. I have nothing to argue with you, from the valley of death I spit on you, in the name of the travesti amapô I curse you: tonight our dead will haunt your nightmares.

2. The danger of terfs, the irrelevance of terfs

Those of you who were here with me humiliating the Nazis on 1st of May: Those of you who defined the Versammlungsgesetz and the illusion of safety of the liberal order to mask up and face the enemy up close, you will remember: We didn’t just have the NPD and Die Rechte and the III. Weg and the local Hammerskins, we also had the Légió Hungária, the Bulgarski Nationalen Sajuz, Les Nationalistes and the Polish reactionaries and the Italian brotherhood—real internationale solidarität they have, European fascists. That Nazi influencer, remember her? The nazi Twitter girlfriend? announced a Fortress Europe alliance at that day.

The Colorado shooter, as you heard, is the grandson of a MAGA Republican lawmaker. Another Republican, Arthur Jay Finkelstein, spent decades consulting for European fascists from Austria, Hungary, Czech, Ukraine, all over. Ordo Iuris, a Polish Catholic fascist organisation, has hosted Brazilian fascists, has received help from U.S. fascists to pass anti-abortion legislation, the Bolsonaro family is working with the Trump clan, UK terfs are now using anti-LGBT symbolism from Eastern European fascists, only switching the rainbow flag for the pink-white-blue.

Do you get it, the scale of this? It’s the work of years. We are under attack, it’s not just random shootings, there’s no Einzelfälle, American politicians are openly calling for genocide now, the day after the shooting. We cannot fight this with just demos. We cannot / fight this / with just / demos.

Are terfs even relevant at this point? Yes, they enable and empower the rise of fascism, but if they all stopped tomorrow little would change, because trans-exclusionary “feminism” is self-defeating. The same power they ceded for Republicans to oppress us trans people, was immediately used to overturn Roe Vs. Wade. Terfs are so eager to kick us out of women’s spaces, they are so disgusted by our bodies, so desperate to build walls to leave us out, that they don’t even look at who’s handing them all those bricks. Terfs think that their walls keep us out, but they’re walling themselves with the men inside Gilead.

The rotting trans bodies hanging from those walls will prove to be poor consolation for them.

3. Juicy gossip bitterness

No, it’s not to them that I came to talk today, it’s to you. My siblings. All of you my folk, all of you queer, interestingly gendered anarchists, actually feminist feminists.

I’m Brazilian. Most trans folk killed last year are from my country. By a large margin. For the 13th time in a row.

Police kills an average of 17 people per day in my country. If I dress like this outside in my country, there’s a very high chance I’ll be beaten to death; half the time the murderers will be in police uniform.

When I watch the rise of fascism, the rise of anti-queer violence here inside the progressive walls of Fortress Europe, I, like all my immigrant friends, have a very specific kind of chill: That I am being thrown back into that, terrified of ever looking too fem, too sexual, too myself. And I cannot—I will not go back to that. I would rather die lynched on the streets than live in hiding again.

I’m not a citizen. Any crime, however how minor, can get me deported, back to that. Antifa action might get me deported back to that. Having, quote, “extremist political beliefs”, endquote, is grounds to get my citizenship denied.

I’ve spent Trans Day Of Remembrance being slut-shamed online by some swerf who thought me, a Latina travesti, going to an anti-police demo with this outfit, yes this glorious outfit you see me in right now, was grossly inappropriate. The kicker? The swerf in question wasn’t a cis terf. She was a trans anarchist. While the shooting victims were still bleeding she was trash-talking me to my partner on how me posting my boobs online is me being a whore, without tact or niveau, without class, for submission to men.

Sister I WISH I was a whore! I’m not ALLOWED be a whore, because women like THEM (points to terf meeting) as well as like YOU will sicc the cops on me if I even try. So I have to sell my body to other, significantly worse forms of wage slavery, working for capitalists rather than myself.

I prepared a speech for this Trans Day of Remembrance; I put a lot of blood and tears into it. Do you know who gave me space, who wanted to listen to my speech, who thanked me for it? Pride Rebellion. For those who don’t know, Pride Rebellion is not an anarchist org. They’re close to Apoists, they have people who wear the hammer-and-sickle. Theoretically, not my politics. They’re closer to second-wavey forms of feminism; their theory, unlike our queer theory, has little allowance for slut pride. In traditional Jineologî there’s no discussion on trans people, yet do you know how many times the Kurdish heval have given me problems over my gender? Never. Do you know how often my outfits have been policed by these revolutionaries whose theories could justify that? Never.

Do you know why that is? How come the hevals will unconditionally gang up with me, even when my positions don’t fit the ideology? Because as we speak the Kurds are being bombarded by Turkish airplanes, in a renewed genocide, aided and abetted by NATO and by the Bundesrepublik Deutschland, with next to no notice on mainstream media. When my existence doesn’t fit their theories, the Kurds open space for me, because we are under attack, and unlike white German activists, the Kurds have a sense of the enemy. The Zapatistas have a sense of the enemy. BLM has a sense of the enemy. We are under attack, and insurrectionaries know we won’t solve this with demos. The first time I talked to a Kurdish activist—the first time!—she offered to take care of my queer kids, should anything happen. I want you to think how many queer anarchist comrades you can trust to have that kind of commitment. Which of your comrades would offer you, spontaneously and unconditionally, long-term childcare? Who would offer you shelter and food and cover fire, even if someone has a shitty take, even if there’s a relationship conflict, even if the positioning differs or the theory doesn’t fit?

My heval’s theory doesn’t cover my nonbinary kid’s gender identity, but she will put my kid above her theory, because we are comrades and the enemy wants us both dead. This isn’t hyperbole, this isn’t me being dramatic, they literally wants us all dead, dead, and unlike the terfs in here, we can’t count on the cops to keep us safe. Who keeps us safe? Who keep us safe?

Compared to the Kurds, the German left is severely limited in action by their investment in the fake security they think they have. All I hear is attempts to dissuade me to do anything that could get me in trouble, to go help with the struggle in safer ways, maybe do a Küfa (if you get the Ordnungsamt permission for one, natürlich). The very first antifa demo I did in Germany was against the Versammlungsgesetz, summer 2021, you know how that went: We were kesseled on the asphalt til midnight, detained, profiled, photographed, catalogued in all shitty government databases as potential terrorists. It was a legal demo! I followed all the rules! I was profiled for holding a sign that said „Antifaschismus ist kein Verbrechen“! And all the good-opsec Germans in black masks and North Face windbreakers were minutely profiled right along with me. When the boots come for you, your crypto apps won’t save you. I’m presenting this with my face exposed, which is nice cos you get to see my new haircut, but I actually came here masked! (lifts pink mask theatrically from the ground) You saw me going Karen at the cops before, they forced us to unmask!

I’m borrowing from the civil rights movement here when I say: mobilisation won’t save us, we need true organisation, we need to provide our siblings with shelter, with food, hormones, safety, we need fucking guns. The terfs are a lost cause but you are my people, the fascists are coming for all of us, we’re the sacrificial goat. Half of you thinks me having ten girlfriends is #problematic, that my sexuality is Inappropriate in Public Spaces I should tone it down. And the other half thinks my aggressiveness is too overt, my violence too proudly worn, I’m better off cancelled by security culture. For the third half, the small half that doesn’t want to tone down ANYTHING for the sake of cis sensibilities: Are we going to wait until the fascists take power? Are we going to keep shitposting about antifaschistische aktion, or are we going to actually do it? Crew up. Bash back. Bash first.

My lovely siblings, I’m so sorry my voice is hard to hear. The police took our microphones. Today, you see, is not only TDoR but also Totensonntag, which is a mandatory silent observance. The cops make our dead speak softly, so as not to bother the Christian dead.

I will not speak softly.

Razor-thin, the newspaper says,
the electoral victory was razor-thin,
vote for bombs and petrol pumps
or else the fascists win,
51%, 49%, thin as a razor
this blade that stands between us
and concentration camps.

A razor is the weapon of the travesti
and all sex workers,
a razor tucks into a bra
or a harness or a sock,
for bad johns, you see,
cos the latina travesti knows she’ll be working the streets
whether we get the 51%, or the 49%,
the latina travesti remembers her sisters
murdered by police also when the Worker’s Party
was in power;
the travesti learns on her skin that anyone in power
wants that skin buried, burned, behind bars, or—worst of all:—
covered,
for the body of the travesti is of Nature,
like Nature it is generous, abundant,
impossible to own;
the queer body is a challenge to all power because
it exists.
So the travesti knows without words
that the kick on your ribs
hurts the same
if they paint
the boots
red.

My country is number 1! [beat]
in murdering trans people,
I read this poem every year, it’s always true,
every year I hear Germans speak Portuguese
for a single day,
reciting the names of our dead.

And so it is that when I see the stickers
with red-white-black and defaced rainbows
and 1933s and 1488s,
I know on my skin that the life we carved here
is being taken,
& I cannot go back to that life,
afraid of holding hands,
afraid of speaking the language of my body,
afraid of having anything on me
the colour of pink.
I’ve been to where we’re headed.

And so it is that when I pass
by some wanker wearing iron crosses and
cargo pants clashing with shitty Burzum hoodies,
and totally démodé Wehrmacht T-shirts,
I am taken by the distinctly feminine urge of
Violence.

Violence is often not tactical,
  the way sex is not tactical.
Violence is counter-productive,
  like shouting back at a catcall is counterproductive.
[Venomously:] Violence is anti-strategic, like
  refusing to pass as cis is anti-strategic.
[Escalating to shouting:] Violence is hopeless, like
  kissing your friends at a bar when you know you’ll be thrown out is,
hopeless.

I am so tired of being productive.

The violence is me is like my femininity,
it asserts itself, it resists theorising,
it won’t be denied.
The Nazi is bigger, and younger, and
better armed, and
protected by police,
and I could be killed or deported or raped tortured—
[shaking head dismissively:] doesn’t matter, there is only body,
wordthoughts only exist later,
after the violence has asserted itself and the Nazi is running
away.

The violence in me is irresistible,
unconcerned with justification,
whole in itself:
it is, in a word,
holy.

[Sweetly:] See, only after I could finally be the woman I was,
only after I could open my heart,
only after transition I could get in touch with my emotions.
[Bluntly:] Turns out rage is an emotion.

The Kurds call it the fire in the heart.
The fire calls to us, because
there’s a lot that needs burning.

And someone tell me that violence is toxic masculinity.
Sister, masculinity was lack of agency,
masculine is what they wanted me to be,
what they beat me for,
only by rejecting masculinity I could fight back,
sister if weapons are a boy thing
consider where that line of thinking will leave
the femmes,
I cannot resist it but sister even if I could sister I don’t want to,
sister I burn, I burn.

A razor is the weapon of the travesti,
Maria Navalha, the pombagira protector, has 7 razors,
(don’t mess with her, she’s never alone),
in the 50s the police wrote with fear
of our ancestor Cintura Fina,
her body crisscrossed by razor-lines
and beatings,
[In one breath:] because she was a travesti in the 50s and she would never accept an insult and I get it,
this isn’t self-destruction it’s the opposite, each line on the skin
is a lifeline,
it’s either a body covered in scars or the closet,
resistance is life, resistance is life and to be tame
in the face of oppression
is death
before death.

This is my call:
Either people are scared of wearing swastikas
or they are scared of holding hands.
It’s one or the other. You can’t have both.
Fascists should feel uncomfortable coming out as fascists.

Someone has to do the, uncomforting.

In my noncitizen standing, should I be here making this call? When I can be deported by words, by a social media “like” on river and sea, shouldn’t I submit an anonymous indymedia communiqué, shouldn’t I stay home and leave the work for the First World black bloc, shouldn’t I hide my identity better?

[Continuing to speak while undressing from hoodie and windbreaker and jacket and cardi, letting go of tactical bags and waterproof gloves on the wet floor, until striped down to pink lacy lingerie, shaking in the November rain and the wind, though not of cold:]

O.P.sec [beat] is -sec for an O.P. It’s not a morality, it only makes sense as a tactic for a given goal. Look, honey, I’m not built for baggy gender-neutral clothes I was made to pour glittery goo over my bouncy tits, I lived in hiding for 30 years to protect myself from repression and every one of those years was Hell, I look too hot in a Mob Action #ootd not to be on camera, what’s even the point of a safety that effaces the body I built with my blood and my life when I come here to tell you: “don’t let them normalise this, don’t just swallow this, don’t wait for them to take power, don’t wait for anybody else to come solve this, it’s on us, crew up, bash back, bash first”——

This right here [contours her exposed curves with her hands] is my O.P., my propaganda of the thicc.

There’s a type of queer who saw the enemy and understood there is no peace with fascists without victory. For everyone else all I can say is, look at these hashtag-TDoR numbers, look around, wander the cruise spots at night ask how it’s going: You might be not interested in violence, but violence is interested in you.

(Performed 20 Nov 2022. Immediately after presenting this speech, news hit of the anti-queer right-wing attack in Colorado TDoR, killing 5 people in a nightclub and injuring 25. The shooter was only stopped because clubbers fought back and subdued the enemy.)