[Solumina]

What V said up there is why intersectionality matters, all the systems of privilege and oppression are connected and work together, you can't really separate one from the others. Yes it is important to have a focus while working on specific legislation and addressing specific problems but you can't ignore the interconnectedness of it all, even though it would be so much easier and less soul draining to do so.

I'll go back to where you questioned that my gender was as much of a problem for me as my sexuality, the two go hand in hand. I get a lot of shit for being a women, I don't go a single week without "enjoying" a little street harassment and when I was working full time at a resort it was a pretty regular thing that (almost exclusively male) guests pushed my boundaries to the point where I was extremely thankful to have a counter between me and them as well as two security cameras pointing directly at me, and a nextel in my hand with my finger ready to push the button to chirp either security or the pool techs if I knew they were in the building (their office and the pump room were in my building so they could be there in about 20 seconds but they also went up to the outdoor pool and on calls to guest units), sometimes that happened multiple times a night and while usually I could get them to go the fuck away on my own, there were plenty of times when I did have to push that button. That kind of stuff is just a part of my life.

I also enjoy a lot of shit because I'm queer but it isn't really directed at me, it is more like background radiation, part of that is that when it comes to strangers I do pass as straight, my friends and family know I'm queer but I have a pretty loving and accepting family, when I came out to them the worst that happened was being asked super personal questions about my love life, which was awkward and uncomfortable and not the kind of questions they had ever asked me before but not something I was bothered by and certainly was much more pleasant than what many other people experience when they come out. I've also been pretty selective about friends, if they do queer bash (or are racist/sexist/ablest/whatever) I call them out on it and if they don't work that shit out I will drop them as a friend, I don't need that shit in my life. So essentially the people who know I'm queer except it. Strangers don't know it, coworkers don't know it.

The times when being queer is a big problem for me the fact that I'm a woman also come into play. The reason why I've been harassed and assaulted (not ***** but assaulted) at parties (80% of the time by predominantly straight women, about 10% by gay men, yeah at parties I've been sexually assaulted by gay men about the same number of times as I have been by straight dudes and far more than both of them combined by predominantly straight women, never even had my boundaries pushed by someone who was trans* or a queer woman) is that I'm an attractive woman who isn't mono-sexual (attracted to only one gender). They think that because they aren't interested in having sex with me but that I am attracted to them (spoiler alert: I'm not but everyone thinks peeps like me are attracted to everyone) that it is okay for them to touch or kiss me without any sort of consent. They treat me like a play thing there for them to experiment with and those situations can go from "eww stop trying to kiss me" level of bad to much, much worse with just about no warning and everybody just writes it off because the person harassing/assaulting me is "just having a bit of fun" or I get told "don't worry they aren't even into chicks" because the fact that they don't actually want to put something in my vagina should totally excuse the fact that they are already doing things to me that I don't want them doing.