Can You Give Him A Goddamned Minute?

I think everyone knows where I stand on this performative offense that seems to be sweeping parts of our culture.

You know what I'm talking about: This idea that it's somehow cool, somehow enlightened, somehow morally superior to be offended by relatively minor human behavior.

And it's fucking exhausting.

What's even more exhausting is when people become offended on behalf of others.

They call it allyship. And yeah, sometimes it's support. Sometimes it's empathy. But sometimes, it's a fucking performance.

A friend and coworker was telling me about an experience he witnessed at lunch the other day that illustrates this perfectly.

A food truck was slammed. The guy inside was buried. Long line. High desert sun. Tiny metal box. Grill going. Orders stacking up.

In other words, he was working his ass off.

One customer became upset because the food wasn't coming out fast enough.

Imagine that. A human being forced to wait for food that somebody else was preparing for them. The fucking horror.

So she started complaining. Loudly.

The guy running the truck tried to respond while simultaneously cooking, taking orders, and digging himself out of the hole he was in. Somewhere in the exchange, he accidentally referred to her as "he."

That's it. That's the crime.

A tired, overworked guy trying to juggle twenty things at once accidentally used the wrong word. And this woman lost her mind.

Then another customer joined in.

Now you've got two angry adults throwing a tantrum because a guy sweating his balls off between a grill and a sandwich cooler accidentally misgendered a cisgender woman.

What the actual fuck?

Now, you've all read other blogs where I've talked about being misgendered. And yeah, sometimes it stings. But, I'm six foot one, two hundred and twenty-five pounds. Throw a few layers of leather on me and I'm not exactly a picture of femininity. So it happens.

A lot.

Sometimes I notice. Sometimes I don't.

Sometimes I'm just hungry and want my damn food.

But every single time, I keep any offense to myself.

Why?

Because I've lived for fifty-four years.

Because I've seen things actually worth being offended about. Real injustice. Real suffering. Real consequences.

A woman made an illegal turn, totaled my motorcycle, nearly killed me, and sent me into six months of recovery. She didn't receive a ticket despite failing to yield the right of way. She wasn't tested for drugs or alcohol despite circumstances that arguably warranted it. That's worth being pissed about.

Loss of freedom? Worth being pissed about.

Being denied opportunities because you're transgender? Worth being pissed about.

A hardworking guy accidentally calling someone "he" while trying to keep lunch moving? Sorry. That doesn't rise to the level.

And honestly, I think this kind of behavior does more harm than good. Because when everything becomes an outrage, nothing is. When every minor inconvenience becomes a moral emergency, people stop taking actual injustice seriously.

And that brings me to something else that irritates the hell out of me. The same people who become offended on behalf of strangers over harmless mistakes are often the same people who adopt identities, causes, and struggles that don't belong to them.

It's all part of the same performance. The same need to be seen as morally superior. More enlightened. More oppressed. More relevant.

It's not enough to support a community anymore. They need to become the main character in somebody else's story.

You see it every June.

People marching around celebrating struggles they never actually endured. People inserting themselves into experiences they never lived. People competing to prove just how offended they can be on behalf of everyone else.

And honestly, I wish they'd fucking stop.

Not because I dislike allies. I love allies. Real allies are wonderful. Real allies listen. Real allies support. Real allies don't make somebody else's experience about themselves.

I've spent decades living this life. I've had slurs thrown at me. I've been laughed at. I've been treated differently. I've been denied opportunities. I've had medical systems screw things up because somebody saw the word transgender on a form and suddenly didn't know what to do. I've walked into places wondering whether I was safe.

Those experiences are real. Those experiences came with a price.

So when I watch people wrap themselves in queer identity as a fashion statement or a source of social credibility, it doesn't feel like support. It feels like appropriation.

Pride was never about being offended. At least not to me.

Pride was about perseverance. It was about surviving. It was about walking through actual injustice and refusing to let it break you. It was about keeping your head high anyway.

And that's why I get so irritated watching people lose their minds over harmless mistakes. Because it minimizes the real battles. It cheapens the real victories. And it distracts from the actual progress we've made.

The world isn't perfect. But it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be.

Most people aren't trying to hurt you. Most people aren't attacking your identity. Most people are just trying to get through their day.

Including the poor bastard sweating inside a food truck trying to finish the brisket.

So maybe calm the fuck down. Maybe save your outrage for things that actually matter. And maybe, just maybe, wait patiently while the man finishes the brisket.