In the fall of 2008, the Lansing, Michigan chapter of national queer and trans anarchist group Bash Back! descended upon anti-queer mega church Mount Hope in two strategically placed groups of disruptionists. The first of these groups diverted the attention of security, pink and black blocked up and waving sings which read such things as “Dykes of the Damned” and “Satanic Trannys 666”. Inside, others waited patiently in their best Sunday drag until at once they rose, interrupting the service with cries of “Jesus was a homo!”, a banner drop from the balcony that said “It’s Okay to Be Gay! Bash Back!”, queer kiss ins, over a thousand strewn fliers with queer positive content aimed to console potentially queer youth of the church, and pulled fire alarms. Afterwards, a communique was written proclaiming “So long as bigots kill us in the streets this pack of wolves will continue to BASH BACK!”
Cross country chapters and cells of Bash Back! have since emerged at a rapid and steady pace. Several churches have been attacked, spray painted and glued shut, transphobes have been beat down, the officer responsible for the brutal beating of trans womyn Duanna Johnson who was shot and killed in the process of suing the Memphis Police Department has been sent caskets and death threats, corporate pride events have been stormed, a queer and trans squat has been opened in response to the disproportionate rate of queer and trans homelessness, dance parties have spilled out of convergences transforming the trains of Chicago into queer fucking, crowd surfing and graffiti writing modes of public transportation, which then spilled into the streets along with a couple trashcans and newsstands leading to four arrests and several unarrests. And to top it off they state that they “know you call us terrorists because our very existence terrorizes you. This makes us proud but you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Yet as the queerest hours of the night are lit by the fuschia flames of insurrection and liberation, and as the candle lit vigils of the soon to be past erupt into wild infernos which reach urgently into the sky, we must not forget that there are also sirens wailing in the not so distant background.
Bash Back! has received the attention of endless right wing wingnuts, the Ku Klux Klan, disapproving assimilationsist gays, the FBI, Bill O Reily and the Alliance Defense Fund, who are a right wing rights group that is currently in the process of suing over 20 subpeonaed, alleged Bash Back! members in connection to the action at Mount Hope Church. Bash Back!’s response? “Bash Back! and radical transfolk/queers cannot and will not be intimidated. Some of us face life and death on a daily basis. This lawsuit ain’t shit.”
Even so, with resistance comes repression. And while there is such an overwhelming, immediate need to bring the entire atrocity known as the prison industrial complex to it’s heartless fucking knees, their is also an urgency in keeping gender variant populations free and out of the transphobic, gender binary segregated cages of the state. So let’s get fucking organized! Solidarity means attack. It also means fundraise! Legal expenses are unreal, but networks of support and creativity can warm hearts and give queers in kourt a fighting chance. Organize a benefit show! Play one! Distro! Have a bake sale! A secret cafe! Donate online by searching Bash Back Legal Defense Fund at fundable.com.
Let us join the wolf pack, have each other’s backs. Sing our howling warcries to the moon, and continue to make clear that queer and trans oppression is part of a system of oppression, and that no part of that system will be spared the fierceness of our fury!