What I Learned About Resistance in the Street Patrol
It was 1991, and we wanted to stop gay bashing.
The author (far left) and other members of the Street Patrol training in San Francisco, 1991. Photo: Michiijo Eto.
What to do, what to do.
It’s been a couple of weeks since the election of the orange clown and nationalist hate-monger Donald Trump, and though some of us are still mourning and others are dreading (or deciding to avoid entirely) family conversations over Thanksgiving dinner, many of us are wondering: now what? What the hell do we DO?
At first, I avoided social media. I logged off before the full reality hit, when people were still tweeting “No matter what happens, the fact that a (insert Trump description here) even came close to the Presidency should be a national embarrassment.” I came back a few days later, when embarrassment was the least of worries. I avoided and still avoid most takes. I don’t really care how it happened, because I don’t think I have a role in electoral strategy. For that matter, when the Cubs eliminated the Giants in the playoffs, I stopped reading coverage. I didn’t care how it happened, only that it had happened.
As days go by and the cringe-worthy announcements get worse and worse — this career hack for that cabinet post, that far-right propagandist for this White House position — the initial hurt is scabbing over. And truth be told, I live in the San Francisco bubble. There aren’t very many hooting, triumphant frat boys in Brooks Brothers and red caps braying racial epithets. No one has painted a swastika on the local school. No one has tried to yank a hijab off a woman’s head.
So I did what I could at first. I donated to the ACLU. I subscribed to the online edition of a newspaper. I sent money to a small LGBTQ center in conservative southern Illinois. I found a migrant and immigrant rights organization, MICA, to support with a recurring donation.
But I know an attack might happen in my presence. I don’t expect to be attacked personally, I am a 60-year-old white man who is very unlikely to be a target. I don’t look like any of the hated groups. I watch for an attack on someone gay, or non-white, or female, or trans, or Jewish, or Muslim, or handicapped, or any of the many people whom Trump has given hateful people permission to mock and attack. I know they are all around me, and that they are vulnerable.
I was thinking about this this morning and wondering what action would look like, when I realized that I already had a template for it.
In 1991 I joined Queer Nation in San Francisco. This activist organization was fighting for queer visibility and the assertion of queer identity during the last years of the G.H.W. Bush administration. Bashing was on the rise, and one of the groups that formed within (and eventually grew out of) Queer Nation was the Street Patrol.
We were a bunch of men and women, mostly misfits, who wanted to prevent gay bashings. We got training from the only group who would train us — the Guardian Angels — and adopted many of their tactics. We trained to surround and diffuse confrontations — how to deal with someone with a knife, how to deal with a crazy person, how to take down an attacker.
Mainly, we walked around the Castro District from midnight to about 3:00 a.m. every Friday and Saturday night wearing pink berets and watching out for danger.
During the more than two years I was with the group, we stopped almost no bashings. We intervened in drunken arguments when it looked like it might get ugly, that was the main thing. But we did not find what we expected and wanted to stop— a car full of hate-spewing hooligans from the suburbs, or a claque of aggro skinheads intent on violence.
It may be that our presence prevented attacks. It’s possible that a violent, aggressive person or group saw us and thought better of committing mayhem. It’s impossible to know. But during the times when we were out there, there was little or no violence in the Castro.
That experience, despite the lack of drama, was a turning point in my life. I learned some things that I thought might be useful for this time, when once again we are watchful for attacks from hate-filled racists, homophobes, and thugs.
Band together. We were a band of misfits. We weren’t particularly strong or cute or heroic. We were the people for whom devoting the prime clubbing hours to trudging around the streets was not a loss of social opportunity. But we protected each other. We trained together. We relied on each other. We trusted each other. And we were strong together.
Train for action. We learned some tactics from the Guardian Angels and from a martial arts instructor. We practiced how to disarm and restrain an attacker. We did it over and over. In fact, what we used almost exclusively, aside from our sheer presence of numbers — there were usually 10 or 12 of us in a group — was verbal de-escalation. More than once I disarmed a lunatic who was shouting homophobic epithets by insisting on talking about the virtues of the local football team, or a pop star of the moment, or the directions to the Golden Gate Bridge.
When we trained for action, we imagined ourselves in situations of danger and crisis. We ran through the situations again and again. Surround the source of danger. Get between the attacker and the victim. Distract the attacker. Talk him down. By training for action, we became unafraid of acting.
Be visible and proud. We had a uniform — pink berets and leather jackets — and we marched in a group, two by two. When we went out like this, we made others feel safer. And we made them feel proud. We, the funny-looking misfits whom cute guys might never look at twice, were applauded by them and given thumbs up. They were glad we were there.
Defend the vulnerable. We vowed that we would protect not against property crimes, so we didn’t care about graffiti, stolen bicycles or even smashed windows. We were not there for the shop owners or the landlords. We were there for the queers in the bars and on the streets and walking home along the dark blocks of the Castro District. We were there to defend the vulnerable — the drag queen in heels, the dyke walking alone, the cruisers and the drunks.
The other night I was driving some tourists — I’m a Lyft driver — through the Castro District. We were going down a dark residential block. The blocks immediately around Castro and 18th Streets are bright and lively, but just a couple blocks away the sidewalks are tree-lined and dark. “Wow, not much happening around here, is there,” asked one of the passengers. “I thought there would be a lot more action.”
I looked around at the street. All was quiet. “It’s quiet here,” I replied. “For now.”
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What I Learned About Resistance in the Street Patrol was originally published in Bullshit.IST on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.