Tell us about one of your favorite Portland memories: Brand new in town, and somehow wound up at Not Enough Fest, played really loud in front of the largest totally queer audience and had the best time.

Please share a time it was difficult living in Portland: Despite what people think about Portland, I felt far safer as a trans woman in Texas. I have been harassed and followed in the streets too many times to count over here— this is how people like me die. Twice in the last year I have been followed while a complete stranger shouted unsolicited hate speech at me and no one did anything about it in broad daylight. I just had to do my best to make sure they could not get close enough. Many passersby have also occasionally slipped in hateful word or too as well. I’ve had occasions at work in retail where people were rude and misgendered me on purpose because they knew they could get away with it. And finally I had a friend, who considers himself a true ally, carelessly out me to his mother. To which he then got offended when called out on it in a private conversation.

This seems to be a theme in Portland: a lot of people here have good intentions and proudly proclaim their support for the queer and trans community but are more often than not very bad at actually supporting those people. They seem to think that just because they are not an asshole it’s no big deal if they casually misgender, use a slur, or even out someone. All that before we even go into my experiences as a Latinx over here.

Although I like Portland, I think the greatest affect it has on me as QTPOC is a deep feeling of isolation as the number of days that I have interacted with someone who is not white continues to grow.