And You Wonder Why I Don’t Like Subways

One of the reasons that I get a little claustrophobic on a subway is the fear of violence because I’m trans. This latest incident bears it out.

Transgender woman captures video as subway passenger verbally and physically assaults her
The Daily Dot
By Jaya Saxena
May 3, 2016

People often assume that New York is full of liberal, tolerant people, a place where people will at least keep their mouths shut on the subway about things that don’t concern them. But that wasn’t the case for Pearl Love, a transgender woman who on Monday found herself on the receiving end of a litany of abuse, which began verbal and became physical, while riding the subway.

Love recorded video of the incident, in which a woman sitting across from her accuses her of “living in a man’s penis and body” and hurls racist remarks at her about her Asian identity.
[…]
Love said she ignored the woman for a while but began recording when the woman’s yelling became louder.

“What are we supposed to do with you?” the woman yelled. “Because this s**t right here ain’t appropriate for my child.” She also asked, “Who are you really under all that makeup?”

Eventually, the woman attacked Love. “When I retreated,” Love wrote on Facebook, “she threw all my stuff on the floor and chased me around the train and [said] she [was] going to find a stick to hit me. It was a crowded train and everyone heard it but no one helped me. Guys acting like nothing happened.”

At least on a bus you can get off, but on the subway you are trapped and that makes me a little bit claustrophobic.