Bash Back gets a glamour shot in this month's Details. Photo by Danielle Levitt.
You may remember the incident in November in which the Lansing, Michigan-based chapter of the Bash Back anarchist group, angry over the church's repression of gays, held a demonstration at the Mt Hope Church in that city, "disrupting a service by pulling a fire alarm, dropping leaflets and yelling at parishioners."
There's a profile of the group in this month's Details: "Founded just over a year ago, the group adamantly opposes what it calls
the 'gender binary system,' which classifies people as either male or
female. Most members consider themselves neither or both. It's
anti-establishment, anti-military, and anti-marriage—for anyone. What
Bash Back! supports is gender self-determination, lots of sex and
pornography, and confrontation as a first resort—a necessary response
to violence."
The group's approach troubles gay rights groups. Sue Hyde of the NGLTF notes: "This looks too much like something I don't want to be involved with. Seeing weapons in the hands of gay folks in the U.S.? There's plenty
of hate in the world."
But one group member — Milwaukee member Tristyn Trailer-Trash — says they're not trying to persuade anyone: "We're not trying to change people's minds, we're not trying to bend
straight people to give us freedom—we're fighting back. We're going to stop them from preaching
hate, stop them from creating an environment that's unfriendly to gay,
queer, and trans people. We're not going to be nice about it—they're
not being nice about it!"
Read the whole article here.
