I'm not a car person, so I never really paid attention to car makes or models before. Sure, I knew that there were Hondas and Hyundais, but unless someone was actively pointing them out, I couldn't tell you which was which.

Then I became the owner of a little red Ford Focus, and I started driving it around.

Next thing I knew, I was spotting them *everywhere*. I'd come out of the grocer and there'd be identical ones parked on both sides of me! Hell, I eventually got a window decal so I could more easily tell which was mine ๐Ÿ˜‹

A couple years ago I discovered I was lactose intolerant, andโ€”bear with me, these stories are connectedโ€”I started keeping lactaid with me wherever I went (just to be safe). I started paying attention to just how much dairy was in things, and wow, spoiler: it's in like *everything* ๐Ÿ˜…

Over the past couple years, I've gotten pretty used to being lactose intolerant. I keep lactase handy, and I watch out for things with "too much dairy". It's just become background noiseโ€”like noticing other Ford Focuses (Foci?). It's just part of my life now.

A couple months ago I got propositioned by a creep in my hotel's lobby.

A couple weeks ago I had slurs yelled at me as I walked down the street with my mom.

A couple days ago someone told me to kill myself in a DM.

Every day, someone says "really? I don't see stuff like that here".

Just to be explicit, that post was about how all the institutionalized/everyday/inherent sexism, racism, homophobia, bigotry, etc. is invisible to most folx until it directly impacts them.

Just like I don't see 99% of the racism that #BlackMastodon does until someone points an example out to me, and just like I would've told you that I don't know anyone who drives a red Ford Focus until I started driving one myself.

It's fucking everywhere...

And to those it affects, it's just the background noise of existing while black/queer/femme/disabled/neurodivergent, and so on.

@alice the point about that for me is that I truely don't understand what motivates those people, and in this I have some form of symapthy for peoples ignorance. It simply doesn't fit these people's (mine included) perception of society - not even closely - so it feels like you are talking about some other species. This makes it all the more important to ensure that everybody affected by this human garbage has a chance to be heard. Especially by people with the power to do something about it
@alice I am not trying to justify this behavior in any way. I just kind of understand why many people have a hard time to believe these story since they are SO FAR outside the envelope they assume possible