Ross Lynn -

NO ONE has the right to judge or deny the pain someone else has been through. What one has the right to do is one thing and one thing only: Listen and gain understanding.

The person you refer to is, frankly, suffering, which should evoke compassion, and yet it is almost impossible to get there when their suffering is demonstrated by- well, being insufferable.

Speaking as a gay man of advanced years I have had, not to mince words, a lifetime experience of being oppressed. I will never experience what a POC goes through in a racist society; I have experienced what a gay man goes through in a homophobic one. My experience is I venture to suggest peculiarly different from yours: my experience is one of enforced shame and invisibility, a spiritual negation of my very identity. I was told, both overtly and with covert whispers, that I was wrong, not a real man, a pervert, disgusting, a danger to children, a laughingstock. Forget "pride". Of course I've survived, but — it cost. Just like your experience of surviving has and will cost something, through no fault of yours.

When someone says, "stop being a victim" I want to reply:

"Who said I'm a victim? Stop being a thug! Stop being a perpetrator! I'm holding you accountable for your oppression. I'm not going to let one action or one single word go by without handing your inhumanity back to you on a plate. I'm not going to let you off the hook. And I'm sure not going to apologize for what you tried - and failed - to do to me."

Don't let the bastards get you down, and I'm sure you know much better than me how that's done.

All the best

DR