Thread by @JasonTGaffney

Was out to dinner with my husband. Which was a lovely date night. And then we overheard a man and a woman talking about trump. /1

The man and woman were strangers at the bar near us. She was basically explaining why she had said disparaging things about Trump to man. /2

And the man kept saying things like you shouldn’t talk bad about the President etc. /3

They went on to talk about how he had five draft deferments. (The man did not believe this but agreed he would look it up.) /4

They then went on to talk about how he should respond to North Korea. Again the man defended trump. /5

Then man went on to say that trump was going to be great for the economy because of big business. (This is wrong btw. i.e. bankruptcy.) /6

He then asked why the woman was so concerned with all of this. She explained she was from a political family. /7

He then tried to mansplain to her that her family wasn’t political because the political position was appointed. (Again he’s wrong.) /8

All this time I was listening with Matt admiring how good this woman was doing remaining calm against such ignorance. /9

Then he basically went on to say one too many times that trump isn’t a bad guy. /10

I couldn’t sit quietly anymore because the whole section of the restaurant was listening. /11

I couldn’t risk having these people listen to this man and think that the Nazi in Chief is normal and a good President. /12

So I stood up and apologized for interrupting but I had to let him know that he was wrong about trump. /13

Trump is in fact a despicable human being. /14

He rolled his eyes and shrugged and said that he was trying to have a civilized conversation with the woman he had been rude to. /15

I followed up with trump is banning Transgender people from the military. He’s terrible. /16

He then mumbled something about a person isn’t terrible based on some policies. /17

I followed up with it’s not policy it’s fucking civil rights. /18

The man go slightly quiet and turned to his dessert that had just arrived at that point. /19

But I couldn’t just let him go eat that delicious looking chocolate cake and ice cream. /20

Not without hearing the rest of it. /21

So my voice got shaky and I followed up with I’m Gay and my husband and I are threatened by the people who he’s appointing to the bench. /22

Trump is threatening my marriage because he’s going to place judges on the bench who are going to make my marriage invalid. /23

The man tried to eat some of his food. But just moved it around. /24

Then the woman held out her hand to me and interrupted what was about to be a full on tear filled meltdown. (I had quiver voice.) /25

She introduced herself as Emily, and revealed that she had a trans son, Logan. /26

She went on to show me photos of her son and talk about how proud of her son she was. Then I introduced her to Matt. /27

After a few minutes talking about how scary things are we told each other to stay safe and we were proud of each other. /28

She told me Logan knew he was Trans at 10 and I joked everyone knew I was Gay at 3. It took me longer to figure out. /29

We said our good byes and Matt and I sat back down waiting for the check. /30

As we waited the man and woman were very quiet. /31

Then as we finished paying and we’re heading to the bathroom before our walk home I heard something wonderful. /32

The woman struck up the conversation with the man again. /33

Only this time instead of defending trump this straight white man said: /34

I guess if I were a part of a 5% minority I would feel differently. /35

Now I can tell you without a doubt that Emily was the good cop and I was the bad cop. /36

And I didn’t expect him to hear me or her. /37

I stood up and got loud because I didn’t want others who were listening to think that maybe the man was right. /38

Because we cannot afford to normalize Nazis. Ever. Nazis are bad. Period. /39

I wanted the rest of the room to hear that. To hear how bigoted trump is. /40

So I made it personal. As I learned in the marriage equality fight it has to be personal for people to care. /41

And wether or not it was my passionate loudness or Emily’s talking about her Trans son and showing pictures (more likely) he heard us. /42

So please speak up when you can. It matters. And thank you to Emily tonight for reaching out and being amazing! /43

I’ll probably never see her ever again, but I’m glad I got to meet her and (virtually) her son. /44

Thanks for bearing with me on this adventure. Who knew date night could be so exciting? /45