Home UK Bus passengers did nothing as drag queen suffered transphobic attack

Bus passengers did nothing as drag queen suffered transphobic attack

July 20, 2018

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A dad verbally abused a non-binary drag queen on a bus shouting Id fuck you up if my kids were here while other passengers sat there and did nothing.

Amrou Al-Kadhi was returning home in drag from a Donald Trump protest in London last Friday.

But ten seconds after getting on the bus, a man in his forties allegedly started screaming it was an abomination for the driver to have let Al-Kadhi on.

Bus passengers 'did nothing' as drag queen suffered transphobic attack — Al-Kadhi claims a man said he would fuck me up if his kids were there (Picture: Twitter/ Amrou-Al-Kadhi)

Writing in The Guardian, Al-Kadhi said: With conviction, he said it was a danger to children for me to be on public transport, and that the driver was morally obliged to throw me off as a way to protect kids.

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The driver stayed quiet, removing neither me nor the perpetrator, and so things escalated. The offender yelled that if his kids were there, hed fuck me up to keep them safe.

Al-Kadhi, who normally does not take public transport in drag after a drag sister was physically assaulted on the streets, said they were left fearing for their safety.

London Bus at Regent Street ??? Piccadilly Circus, blurred motion, no recognizable people at rush hour — Al-Kadhi was more upset by the lack of help from their fellow passengers (Picture: Getty)

Because his kids werent there this time, he decided not to pulverise me, Al-Kadhi said.

Perhaps he thinks I should have been grateful.

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The British-Iraqi writer said they were left more upset by the lack of response from fellow passengers and decided to confront some of them to ask why they hadnt stepped in.

One of the witnesses – a white man – responded: Why would we put ourselves in danger, too? To me, his sentiment is the perfect summation of how people with privilege uphold systems of oppression without even doing anything, Al-Kadhi said.

For such a thought implies it is solely the responsibility of trans bodies to endure the labour of transphobia, and not anyone cisgender.

It shares a bed with the belief that only people of colour should be fighting racism. The idea that it would be inconvenient for someone cisgender to intervene in a transphobic attack illustrates the inertia of privilege– Why should I help you out when things are easy for me right here? Its too much effort.

Steve Burton, TfLs Director of Enforcement and On-Street Operations, told the Evening Standard: Transphobic behaviour and abuse is a hate crime and is totally unacceptable on our network.

Our customers have every right to travel without fear of verbal or physical assault. We would encourage anybody who experiences this type of incident to report it to the police immediately.

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