Friday: got verbally attacked by a passing-by convention attendee who doesnt believe in all this. Being Gay or Transgender or whatever and took my Pride scarf display as an opportunity to witness to me. Another two attendees, a gay Christian couple who overheard the debate, stepped in to assist me. The denier didnt back down though, despite the couples proficiency with quoting Scripture, specifically the Leviticus passage the denier referenced but couldnt quote. She was joined by a friend of her own and eventually the debate reached a legal of strain one hair short of an actual fight. We all disengaged, unhappily, though it was difficult to get her to leave us alone without having won the argument. I was shaking for an hour afterward. That encounter only made me more determined to keep doing what Im doing. Every cute as hell trans kid who nervously comes up to my booth to talk to me makes me so goddamn glad to be here, doing this, giving the validation and support that too many communities and families wont. (Hi, Lee!) Still, it was an ordeal, and I felt really lucky to have had nice artist neighbors and customers to help me. Saturday: Two events so far. A white cis straight guy declared, despairingly, This sucks! I just got the rainbow means gay thing memorized, and now every other sort of crazy orientation is making up their own colors too? I cant remember all that, thats lame. Why do they have to do that? I responded. Imagine living in a world where these flags - these colors - are a way to identify whos safe, who wont react violently to finding out how you do love. If you dont want to remember them all, then just remember the rainbow. Its an umbrella that covers us all. But dont feel like its a personal affront to you when groups of people who arent normal come up with ways to identify others like them, others who support them and wont be violent to them. I clapped him on the shoulder decisively, using the social cue to my advantage to reinforce the assumption he would have no reasonable cause to disagree with my request. Cool. Thanks, bud. Second Saturday event: a customer whos been browsing my Toothless hood for two days came by again with a friend in tow. This friend is a seamstress and he was showing the hood to her because he liked it. She proceeded to talk to him, mostly ignoring me or snapping at me when I did open my mouth, about how she would make a *quality* product, that mine was not quality, that the fins on the back of the hood were done poorly. This! This is WRONG. Theyre not turned inside out, theyre just a single layer. This is wrong. It wont last. Theyll fray over time. And when I countered with But this is a knit fabric. Knits literally cant fray, she gave me a super insulted glare and said, verbatim, Oh, *honey.* We can get into this if you *want* to, but I make hats for a *living*. I *know* what Im talking about. Having thoroughly dismissed me in her own mind, she turned back to my customer and said Like I said. Id do it right. Id make you a *quality* product. With the two layers together and turned inside out. They proceeded to talk over the construction of my hood, point by point, from fabric color to shapes. That customer had been debating buying my hood (he was wearing an entire custom made Toothless hoodie, proof hes serious about the character) - and she did basically everything youre not supposed to do when examining a hand made item in front of its maker. I have every reason to think shes planning on copying my design, and the entire interaction left me feeling hollow. ((For those of you at home doing the math, that makes a minimum of six layers on the flats, and TEN at each seam intersection, along the entire back ridge of the hood - not counting the lining. IDK about you, but I want a garment that actually flexes.....)) Now, Ive also had a BUNCH of really awesome interactions and meet a bunch of amazing quiltbags & LGBT folk. Im not saying its all bad! Im just feeling pretty wrung out by all the negativity right now. Why do people have to be so aggressive at each other for such dumb reasons? You go your way, I go my way, you know? Sigh.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 20:51:23 +0000