(he/him) Left wing activist and writer, blogging about my projects, funny stuff, and local activism. website: akcopeman.co.uk I follow back from my main (sizzlingenthusiastbeliever)
Been radio silent for months putting on a conference for TDOR, then dealing with (literal) fascists who broke my nose during a trans art rally I hosted - anyway, here's my art therapy project that's been helping me deal with my PTSD flare up.
That's right, I've been making a card game! The goal is to make complete creatures for points and to inconvenience the other players, full of pop culture reference and gentle innuendo it's a bright, fun game based on wordplay! It's very queer (like most marine life is!) and I'd appreciate your support by following me on here to stay updated on it 💜
I'll be launching it soon on kickstarter, with options for handcrafted decks, eco herbage cards, and a budget mini deck. I'll be hand painting all the boxes, new players draw a picture on it and winners sign it! (or you can draw a huge sea creature on it, I'm not your boss lol)
Organising a protest and and conference for TDOR this year - what a decision! Been a lot more complications than expected but its shaping up to be pretty spectacular
So we attended a counter protest on Wednesday that was violent right from the off. The fascist group 'patriotic alternative' had turned up to a drag story time event a few weeks ago and caused it to be postponed because their behaviour put the attendees at risk, and we knew they were going to turn up to the next one and wouldn't let it go unchallenged.
As a community we all agreed to meet early, our contract who is in the group let us in on all their plans and so we were able to undercut them. We arrived at 11am (the event was at 1.30) and the fasc turned up with their cameras to live stream everything and started with the harassment and invading personal space, with no sign of the police who had said they'd be there.
They arrived, by some miracle, just as a fasc dived onto the counter protestors to start a fight and broke it up. Tensions continued to mount with PA members insulting, pushing, and filming us with no unscientific by the police. In fact the police were aggressive, pushing a 78 deaf woman. I called for police intervention and no one came, despite them standing 10 feet away and doing nothing.
The arrival of a funeral broke the tension (there's a church on the other side of the library where the story time was taking place) and things called considerably, until PA marched down the road to set up outside City Hall instead, the police made no move to follow but we did - this scared them off, and they continued their march down the road with the intention of circling back round.
When the police noticed we were leaving they followed us, because apparently a group of queers and allies were more of a danger than a group proven to be fascist neo nazis with links to a terrorist group. When asked if the police knew about these connections one counter protestor was told to "grow up."
At one point we had the PA surrounded in the streets, and we could see on their faces that they knew they'd lost. The police prevented us from following them further, claiming they were escorting the PA away even though we could see them leaving unaccompanied and were later seen at a pub.
We had a victory that day, and predictable disappointment in the police.
We were shoved, insulted, demeaned, and abused, and this is just the sort version.
Norwich has proven that it is strong and won't tolerate fascit dick heads.
An article about it here, from and awful paper with a surprisingly ok article.
Joseph Bollard, better known as Titania Trust, hosted the story time event at a library in Norwich while protesters and counter protesters d
Had a great time at Norwich pride this year! I interviewed Adrian Sweeny (trans YouTuber and Instagram influencer) for the Natasha Curson memorial talk, sang with Grace Petrie, Sing With Pride, and The Common Lot, and matched at the front of the parade with the 50 foot trans flag! Norwich pride continues to make a huge effort to make sure trans people are represented and supported during this cruise against (final picture credit to @jamesburton.uk
As chair of my local pride's trans advisory group I've been working to organise a protest about the exclusion of trans and nonbinary people from the conversion therapy ban, I'm so pleased to have had lots of support from everyone on the pride team on all trans issues and for their help organising the event. They've made huge banners, worked with the advisory group on writing letters to our MPs, done press releases, and more!
Really feel lucky! The event was fantastic with a huge crowed and great speakers, I love to see our community come together. Norwich is an incredibly LGBTQIA+ city with dedicated cis/het/allo allies who amaze me every time we're in need!
Hopefully other gender diverse people see that while the government and media are detirmined to dehumanise us, the public are on our side and are willing to fight with us.
This week, Sophie delves into the world of dreams!
A reporter from BBC radio norfolk was at the event and did interviews with me and Charlie as the key figureheads in our city for trans rights campaigning - it's a few minutes long starting at the 50 minute mark for anyone interested in hearing a bit from the protest itself!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bzh6d1
We worked super hard on this event and we got some great media coverage, there's lots of support for trans rights out there at the moment despite how depressing it all seems.
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