The Battle Lines Are Drawn

But does there have to be battle lines at all?

I do not condone violence of any type but it is hard not to when someone is denying your right to exist.

CONFUSED? Feminists who OPPOSE equal rights in outdoor scrap with transgender group!
A PUBLIC discussion over transgender rights erupted into a brawl between radical feminists and transgender activists. 
Express
By Harvey Gavin
September 19, 2017

Maria MacLachlan, 60, was hit in the face by an activist protesting Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists - feminists who oppose equal rights for trans people - and protestors campaigning for transgender rights.

The punch-up broke out on Wednesday, September 13 in Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner, an area usually celebrated as a bastion of free speech.

Video footage showing part of the clash between the rival groups has been posted online and viewed nearly 60,000 times.

TERF’s Ms MacLachlan said she was punched in the face and kicked to the ground after the fight broke out.

Logo’s NewNowNext website reported that,

A group of transgender activists got into a physical altercation with anti-trans feminists in London’s Hyde Park last week.

A video posted to YouTube shows the altercation between a group of transgender people and members of the Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) in Speaker’s Corner on Wednesday.

TERFs, a fringe element in mainstream feminism, deny the validity of trans people’s self-affirmed gender and are known to ally with anti-feminist and anti-LGBT groups to work against transgender rights.
[…]
“There was quite a generation thing. These studenty-looking types were turning up and some arguments started to take place.

I think that it is a generational, the young kids get it, while the adults have a hard time understanding the gender spectrum because they grew up in the gender binary. The teenagers and the twenty something are growing up in a non-binary world.

NewNextNow reported that,

Action for Trans Health London said in a statement, “We condemn violence against women in all forms. We’re proud that many self-organizing activists, allies and supporters stood against hatred, misogyny and intimidation.”

What do you do when someone denies you right to exist? What do you do when a white supremacists wants to enslave you? What do you do when someone uses their religion against your religion?

These are all tough questions and there are no definitive answers. Mahatma Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said violence is wrong and advocated peaceful protests. Many became impatient and demanded more violent actions to bring about change now.

What do you do when a peaceful protest is taken over by violence? We are seeing this happening much more where a thousand peaceful protesters are invaded by a handful of people that are bent on violence. In the Hyde Park incident it was one person who attacked a TREF and that person’s action created a martyr, a 60 year old grandmother TREF. That one attack changed the focus of the trans people who were protesting peacefully the hate directed against us to us as bullies.

These are all relevant questions today as they were in 30s with Mahatma Gandhi, in the 50s and 60s with King, and in the 70s and 80s with Nelson Mandela.

Personally I do not believe in violence, violence only begets violence. Violence gives legitimacy to the haters.