0dense

once is an accident, twice in a row is weird

cut for transphobia, like not overt violence, but more than I get on the regular
So there I was in the office on monday, and one of our interns has been causing friction the entire time I've known him, but he finally got into a conflict with another intern, and I'm tired of it. We'll see what happens, but for my own record as much as anything, he has consistently: displayed reticence to follow directions, requiring far more micromanaging than par. Undermined other interns as well as the directorship (myself and the director herself), including in front of clients. Ignored or out-right disrespected other interns, on multiple occasions. And most specifically, refused to listen to myself and another intern attempt to explain to him why repeated and informed misgendering is a dick move.
Look, I'm not a stranger to transphobia. I get misgendered all the time, and to be frank, usually I don't care. Strangers really don't mean anything to me. Heck, the third member of our staff gets in on it. It's not so much that I've got a thick skin on my own account, but that if I constantly let myself acknowledge the slights, I'd implode. There's no time or place in my life for validating those experiences as negative.
But, I have a position, here. I'm the Assistant Director, I'm tapped for Directorship next semester. And if this is my office, if this is my space, if I have a right to exist, here - I'm not going to let this stand. I don't know what we're going to do, but I went in to specifically bring this up to the Director this morning, and she agreed with my general impression of him, and we're going to figure out the pathway to deal with him and keep everything above-board. If I'm going to make a case, in a legal office, we're going to do it right.

But, I gotta reiterate - the Director agreed with me. She heard me, and decided it was a problem. The thing that happened to me, she doesn't think is ok.
And the intern he got in a conflict with - she was defending me. She was defending me. She called him out for his words, because how of he spoke to me.

Transphobia, ignorance, 'so where are you from' - I'm inoculated to it all.
It's, quite frankly, compassion and support I'm not familiar with. That I have no idea how to handle.

Is that fucked up? it feels fucked up.

Anyway so today, also. I don't know what her problem was, but this one classmate was being hilariously rude to myself and another guy. Like, who goes off on someone for listening to Queen? She did, at him. So, who knows what her deal was. It just started there and escalated, and there was a lot of it to go around, though, including calling me a number of things, including 'whatever'. So that was great.
But the other guy and I just looked at each other like, wtf? And after she stalked out of class early, during the writing handout, as we grouped up, more folks than usual gravitated to our corner to ask 'hey, are you alright? what was going on with her? something didn't feel right.' and we looked at the door after her and not only was she not my problem, she really wasn't any of our problem either. Something was her own business, and we were just along for the ride.

It's so. weird. to have people agree with me that something wasn't good. It's good, itself, it's beyond good - but it's strange.

I don't know what to do when people are, for lack of a better word, just nice like that.

Anyway in other news of the day, I got to use Aristotle's critique of Athens to call out the oil economy and also the US as a nation built on slavery, so that was fun