I haven't posted here in a while (I generally can't cope or keep up but am a constant lurker) but I shit you not FWR friends, this all happened right in front of me and I need to get it off my chest.
We have been at a big summer festival this weekend (8,000 + people). We were leaving the festival last night on foot (with kids in tow) and we heard shouting ahead and came across the following scene.
A young couple, slightly tipsy but not what I'd call drunk were pinned to a wall by a group of security guards. The woman was crying and screaming "we're not transphobic! we're not, we're not!". The young man pointed at the one security guard standing to the side and said "that person shoved me and grabbed my throat!".
This security guard then lunged forward trying to get at the young man and shouted "I heard it! I heard what you said! I AM A FUCKING WOMAN!!!"
The young woman cried and screamed, the security guards shouted aggressively some more, mostly telling the young woman to be quiet, and the couple were told that they were being detained until the police arrived!
After some discussion it seems that the young man said something that the security guard who is (very obviously) a transwoman deemed to be transphobic. The transwoman became enraged and shoved the man and grabbed his throat then called for other members of the security guard team to come and "detain" the couple.
The young couple finally calmed down enough to diffuse the situation with the help of a group of people (all older women - yay them!) who saw the original incident happen and who agreed to walk the couple away from the scene and see them home.
The whole thing was outrageous from start to finish! I'm not condoning the transphobia, I'm sure the young man was being a prize dick, but the behaviour of this transwoman was so physically and verbally aggressive it was frightening.
Surely a key skill involved in being in a security guard at a festival is calming and dispersing such situations, moving people along, keeping them safe and seeing them home rather than shoving, attempting to choke and shouting abuse at them?
All this person achieved last night was to create a grand scene where they were exposed as being a violent, aggressive, abusive snowflake in front of a crowd of many people. This behaviour directly echoed what we so often see online from certain members of the trans community. I am astounded to have witnessed it in a form so complete IRL.
I just feel so upset for everyone who was there, but especially for the young woman who was caught in this through no apparent fault of her own (aside from having a mouthy drunk idiot for a boyfriend). She thought she was going to be arrested and had to endure being physically restrained, shouted at and repeatedly told to be quiet when all she was expressing was fear. That the wider group of security guards (all men, of course) were prepared to escalate the situation on behalf of their aggressive colleague was shocking and very upsetting to witness.