Seattle Nice: Should Left-Wing Counterprotesters Alter Their Approach?
Also: County Assessor Again Accused of Stalking, and Council Presses Pause on Ethics Changes
Also: County Assessor Again Accused of Stalking, and Council Presses Pause on Ethics Changes
By Erica C. Barnett
On this week's Seattle Nice podcast, we had a lively debate over two events held by an anti-trans, anti-choice religious group at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill and at City Hall over the span of four days last week. While Sandeep, David, and I all more or less agreed that the city would have been smart to permit the first event somewhere other than the heart of the city's historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood (and I pointed out that the group did not have the required permit to set up a stage, speaker stacks, and diesel generator for its event at City Hall) we parted ways on what David characterized as the protesters' tactics.
Calling on his past experience as an activist and his read of 1960s history, David said he hoped Mayor Bruce Harrell and his opponent Katie Wilson would "call out the counterprotesters who got arrested," because their actions play right into the Trump Administration's hands. Trans protesters and their allies, he argued, should have been thinking of the "voters in swing states" who would see the arrests on FOX news and decide to harden their views against trans rights.
I countered that the very existence of visible trans people in the world is offensive to people who want trans people to disappear, and that we won't win the votes of bigots by focusing on whether "our" side is being sufficiently civil and demure as they fight for their right to exist.
David and I also disagreed about the implication of the fact that "all 31" of the people arrested were counterprotesters—a data point that that, to me, is just a baseline reality for protests.
I wasn't at Cal Anderson, where police say some people were throwing plastic water bottles and other items. But I was at City Hall on Tuesday, where officers not only stood by while right-wing provocateurs screamed slurs like "tranny" and "autogynophile" in people's faces, but provided security for the right-wing activists before, during, and after their unpermitted concert. The arrests I witnessed happened only after police on bikes swarmed to intervene in verbal arguments, escalating isolated conflicts into chaotic mini-melees.
Sandeep agreed with David that the counterprotesters were "dumb shits," but eventually told us to take it outside because he was tired of hearing us get go around and around about protest tactics (probably fair!)
We also discussed my story about new, disturbing allegations that King County Assessor (and King County Executive candidate) John Arthur Wilson harassed and stalked his ex-partner. Officials and organizations across the county have called on Wilson to step down, but he told KUOW this week that he has no plans to do so.
And we talked about City Councilmember Cathy Moore's decision last week to withdraw her broadly unpopular proposal to lower ethical standards for city council members, who are currently required to recuse themselves from voting on legislation that presents a financial conflict of interest. Moore, as PubliCola was first to report earlier today, is resigning her position as of July 7.
Anybody there think to talk to some transgender folks? Being that these were anti trans events and that many of the public citizens, like myself and neighbors, are just trans and wanting to spend the afternoon in our local park. Instead the police showed up to defend the fundamentalist transphobes bringing their hate to our hate free zone.
Why were there counterprotests at either event? Without the counterprotests, the two events wouldn't even have been reported in any media. I don't see accurate counts of the attendees at "save our kids" in Cal Anderson or the protest at City Hall, but from photos there couldn't have been more than a couple hundred anti-trans people at Cal Anderson and 100 at City Hall.
It is not news that there are ~200 people somewhere in King County or beyond who don't like abortion or trans people. It is only news when violent counterprotestors show up and make it an event, which is exactly what the organizers wanted:
"'We started a riot today in Seattle during worship and the gospel!!' tweeted Ross Johnston, a co-leader of Mayday USA, which put on the anti-abortion, anti-trans event. 'THE CHURCH IS ALIVE!!'" - from coverage in Seattle Times.
As Arlie Hochschild describes in detail in "Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right," one of the worst strategies to try and convert right wing people to a progressive cause is shaming. In fact, shaming is a poor strategy for convincing anyone their political position is wrong and yours is right.
It does feel good to be the one shaming others - righteous indignation is a real mood lifter - but it does nothing to advance a progressive cause.
As Erica C Barnet documents, the anti-trans people tried to shame the pro-trans people by calling them names. Was that effective in converting anyone who is transgender to be cis? No. All that is left is the conflict, which is of greater value politically to the right than progressives.
It is valuable to have demonstrations and events where pro-trans people can make it clear trans people are not going away. Isn't that the point of Pride events?