Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Nepal: How safe are public spaces for gender non-conforming people?

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Pritha Khanal, Kathmandu, Nepal, SSH Blog Correspondent

“I don’t want to rank levels of harassment because the thing about harassment is that even after the act you are traumatized by it. And trauma doesn’t have hierarchies — sometimes I can be more hurt by a word than I can be a fist.” – Alok Vaid Menon

Gender is a social construct and it hasn’t been very inclusive. In many societies, it only has categorized roles for heterosexual males and females. The population of LGBTQ thus is largely excluded by this inherently patriarchal system. The third gendered community is flatly denied by large amounts of population, and hatred for them is twice as much. People, including some ruling governments, policy-makers, politicians and icons, believe “God” only created two sexes and any others are showing themselves up, seeking attention or going against the natural law.

Gender non-conforming people are often known as queer or femme or trans-sexual and they are slowly coming out of closet through various forms of art and literature. One of these great and rising artists is Alok Vaid Menon who uses the pronoun they/them and is originally from India and is now residing in the United States. They represent and promote not only LGBTQ rights, but they also protest against a patriarchal system of gender division and roles, white supremacy and cis supremacies.

Having followed them on Instagram for quite some time now, I noticed that they face harassment ten times worse than me and other cis gender women I know.

Courtesy of Alok Vaid Menon’s Facebook page

Last month on 22nd May, Alok Vaid Menon set the stage on fire among Nepalese poetry lovers in Nepal Tourism Board, Kathmandu. In the event organized by QC bookshop, the popular queer artist and writer Menon enlightened the audience with the problems the transgender community have been facing on a daily basis. The issues which were so surprising to us were expected and every day for them and include: hatred, domination, bullying, being called at, being misunderstood and judged and HARASSED. (Excessively and severely harassed.) They shared the story of being beaten up inside an Australian metro once and how not a single person intervened to help.

Dressed in floral gown and high heels, carrying their body hairs as a pride and shining in the neon lip paints, Menon sings loudly, “I don’t call harassment as harassment; I call it torture. Torture of Patriarchy.”

Alok Vaid Menon agreed to do a short interview with me after I attended the program. The interview is focused mainly upon street harassment and their say on it.

1. As a member of the transgender community, how do you define harassment?

I don’t believe in harassment I believe in torture — by which I mean, I understand harassment to be an intentional use of intimidation, pain, fear, and violence in order to break down marginalized peoples.

2. What are the most common forms of harassment you come across on the street?

Being stared at. People literally just stop what they’re doing and stare at me, take photos of me, point at me.

3. What is the worst case of harassment you’ve ever experienced?

I don’t want to rank levels of harassment because the thing about harassment is that even after the act you are traumatized by it. And trauma doesn’t have hierarchies — sometimes I can be more hurt by a word than I can be a fist. So what I would say is that the most severe and intense forms of harassment that I experience are in the Western world (specifically the US and Australia).

4. How do you usually react during these moments?

I enter survival mode. I look down and try to take up as little space as possible. I start thinking about my options and how to get away safely.

5. How does it impact you psychologically?

I am traumatized by the level of harassment that I experience. It has had an extremely negative impact on my mental and physical health. It’s made me incredibly anxious and I have to constantly find ways to cope with it.

6. What according to you is the solution of these problems? Do you believe change is possible with more awareness and proper education to people or is it effective when victims react back?

The solution is ending patriarchy and the gender binary that upholds it. I notice that a lot of strategies when it comes to ending harassment are oriented around making women and trans people modify our behavior and appearances, and never around actually challenging societies which enable and encourage harassment against us. I don’t think education is necessarily the right approach because this is about power not prejudice. What we need is to name systems of violence like patriarchy, caste, and race — and strategize how to address them at their roots rather than their systems.

7. What do you want to say to society specifically in regards to street harassment and to the victims regardless of gender to rise against it?

It’s not your fault.

Pritha is doing her Master’s degree in Anthropology and her thesis is on the menstruation practice issues among rural teenagers in Nepal. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work. She works in a non-governmental organization focused on women empowerment. Follow her blog www.prithakhanal.com and my Facebook account: @pritha.khanal.

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At Stop Street Harassment, We #StandWithGavin

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We believe that transgender rights are civil rights. Stop Street Harassment works to document and end gender-based public harassment worldwide, and we recognize that this includes the harassment of women and LGBTQ individuals across every race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, age, and socio-economic status.

Gavin Grimm’s case is the case of thousands of transgender people across the country.  “It’s not just about bathrooms,” Gavin said earlier this week. “It’s about the right for trans people to exist in public spaces.” While Gavin’s case focuses on his access to restrooms in the school context under Title IX, it has much broader implications about who belongs in public spaces in the first place.

Our organization has documented thousands of stories from people of all genders around the world who have experienced verbal harassment, and sometimes physical violence, in public spaces simply for existing: Simply for being a woman. Simply for being LGBTQ. Or simply because, no matter who they are or what they are wearing, public harassment is at its core about power. We reject the idea that – across identity categories – women have less of a right to be in public than men, that gay and lesbian individuals have less of a right to be in public than their straight peers, or that transgender people have less of a right to be in public than cisgender people.

We also believe that an attack on any marginalized community is an attack on all of us. We’ll continue to stand with transgender students like Gavin, and all transgender people, who feel like they are not welcome in public spaces simply because of who they are. We’ll continue to fight with and for them, and will never give up on our global efforts to combat gender-based harassment.

Gavin’s fight has been delayed, but it’s far from over. We look forward to the day when all people feel welcome to exist and worthy of existing in public spaces – no matter who they are, what they look like, where they live, or who they love.

Signed,
The Stop Street Harassment Board of Directors

(Special thanks to board member Patrick Ryne McNeil for drafting this statement.)

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New U.S. Transgender Survey

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transgenderreportThe U.S. Transgender Survey was released today by the National Center for Transgender Equality. Among the findings are alarming ones relating to discrimination and harassment in public spaces:

Public accommodations and bathrooms

“Accessing basic goods and services is also a major hurdle for transgender people:

  • 31 percent of trans people experienced mistreatment in the past year at a place of public accommodation (stores, hotels, etc.), including being denied equal service (14 percent), verbal harassment (24 percent), or physical attack (2 percent).
  • 20 percent avoided at least one type of public accommodation because they feared mistreatment.
  • 9 percent of respondents were denied access to a restroom in the past year.
  • Restrooms were often unsafe, with 12 percent experiencing verbal harassment, 1 percent experience physical attacks, and 1 percent experience sexual assault when accessing a restroom.
  • 59 percent avoiding a public restroom in the last year out of fear of confrontations, with 32 percent actually limiting what they ate or drank to avoid the restroom.
  • 8 percent reported a urinary tract infection, kidney infection, or other kidney-related problem in the past year as a result of avoiding the restrooms.”

And…

  • “46 percent of trans people experienced verbal harassment in the past year.
  • 9 percent of trans people experienced a physical attack in the past year.”

H/T our board member Patrick

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Post-Election Map of Hate, Including Street Harassment

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splcnov292016The Southern Poverty Law Center released a new report yesterday on the more than 860 post-presidential election hate incidents that have been reported so far in the United States. You can see the breakdown and learn more about the types of incidents they are tracking here:

Here are examples of the Anti-Woman incidents, which they classify as street harassment.

“Since the election, the frequency and tone of street harassment of women seems to have changed. Women — about 5% of the total reports — reported that boys and men around the country are parroting the president-elect’s sexist and vulgar comments from the now-notorious 2005 audio tape.

In Minneapolis, middle-school boys leaned out of a school bus to yell, “Grab her by the pussy!” to a man walking with a female colleague.

A 50 year-old woman from Venice, California, reported that she had not been “catcalled” in over 20 years. The day after the election, three white men in a pickup truck bearing a Trump sticker shouted at her, “Do you want us to grab your pussy?”

In Arlington, Virginia, a woman crossing the street reported that two young white men yelled at her from their car: “You better be ready because with Trump, we can grab you by the pussy even if you don’t want it.”

In New York, a girl on her way to school reported that a man on the subway told her he was “allowed to grab my pussy because it’s legal now.”

A woman in Spokane, Washington, reported that she encountered young men who she described as being “‘liberated’ from normal behavior since the election.” They shouted “We’re going to rape you!” from a Jeep with the word “TRUMP” emblazoned on its side.

And in a Brooklyn, New York, restaurant, a woman who voiced her support for Hillary Clinton was punched in the face by a male patron.”

If you’ve experienced any of these types of harassment (e.g. anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-LGBT, anti-woman), you can report it via this URL or the hashtag #ReportHate.

Related, here is a Ms. Magazine article by Carly Lanning about how Trump is a “trigger” for sexual abuse survivors.

H/T our board member Patrick!

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TDOR 2016

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Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Via HRC:

“Now in its 18th year, TDOR is a time for the transgender community and allies to mourn those who have been victims of anti-trans violence, and to recommit to ensuring that their lives – and deaths – are not forgotten. TDOR allows us to call attention to the continued violence and injustice transgender people face every day.

In 2015, HRC reported the murders of at least 21 transgender people in the United States, more than any previous year on record. A disproportionate number of these victims were transgender women of color. That alarming trend has continued in 2016. HRC and the Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC) just released A Matter of Life and Death: Fatal Violence Against Transgender People in America 2016, a new, heartbreaking report documenting the often deadly violence faced by the transgender community and exploring the factors that fuel these tragic attacks.

“TDOR is about mourning those who have been taken from us through violence, transphobia and hatred, and it is a way of recognizing the loss that those lives represent to our community,” said Nicole Cozier, HRC Director of Diversity & Inclusion.

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“TDOR empowers HRC’s steering committees, members and other activists on the ground to support members of the transgender community in their regions. It’s about mobilizing our communities to reach out and say, ‘We’re here and we stand with you.’” Cozier said.

It’s for this reason, I’m so pleased that the latest anti-harassment transit campaign we worked on in the Washington, D.C. area includes a transwoman of color in one of the ads. Trans people, including Trans people of color deserve respect, dignity, love and — to not fear for their lives!!!!

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