…When we were handing out zines near the stage, a person with a revolted look on his face and a yellow armband (a “de-escalator”), told us to stop. We asked him why. He said were trying to have a peaceful march to build a mass movement. We asked, “What’s wrong with distributing this zine? Have you read this zine?” He said, “Yeah, I don’t think highly of it,” and continued trying to stop us. People were staring at us and we turned to them and offered it to them and told them that this armband guy doesn’t want them to read it…

…We endure more formulaic speeches, one of which poorly memorialized Candice King, a recently fallen comrade and friend, with a moment of silence. We do not think Candice observed a moment of silence in her life, and this was a weird, clinical tribute to a person who was full of life and insanity and brilliance. We hand out the rest of our zines, people were eating them up. We decided to press. We approach the armband guy and ask him what he is doing here today. He says march. We ask him what he’s gonna do after the march, like in the grand scheme. He says he is building a Mass Movement, following in the model of Bolshevism, set out by Lenin. Another guy comes over, with an armband. We ask him what the goals of the Mass Movement are. Armband guy #1 says he wants to seize power. Armband guy #2 says we want to put our people in office, as the mayor, the governors, the judges, and the police. We cannot help but to sound the fucking alarm and we start making a scene about how these boys wanna be cops. Right out of their mouths in front of crowds of people who hate the police from one degree to another…We continue to loudly argue and more Armbands show up to de-escalate us. We criticize their peace policing, we turn their pop-psychological language against them…

 The Armbands #1 and #2 keep calling us bro, and even tho we’re blocced up, we are clearly women. We correct their dishonest mistake. They double down, but now that they are informed that they are yelling at women, they start calling us “bitch” and “cunt” while their spittle flies at us. The person making a speech at this time continues as if it’s not happening, and ironically starts talking about Feminism. Armbands #1 & #2 continue to misgender us…They actually threatened to fight us, asking if we want to “go”. They underestimate the pressurized rage lying in wait in our bodies, but we don’t let it out. The de-escalators surround us, while Armband #1 continues threatening violence. He gets dragged away and de-escalated. We get pushed away from him. We start calling out his behavior, amplifying to the crowd that this guy calls women bitches and cunts. He gets on stage and starts reciting a speech about feminism, of all things, while we shout louder than their soundsystem and people try to push us out of that area.

Armband guy #2 continues misgendering us and the cycle continues, breaking again into conflict. He says he can’t tell we are women because we “sound like men and you’re wearing masks”. At this point, it is hard to tell this guy apart from an honest-to-god chud. He, too, gets de-escalated, and one de-escalator disingenuously asks if we are “okay” as if they are not trying to control our behavior. We simply point out that true colors were shown, and the de-escalator agrees that it was disgusting and vile. People ask us what the point of this is; we say that conflicts need to be brought to the surface.

We could have taken the stage and the mic, and we kind of wished we did, but we may not have really needed to, because our provocations had a perceptible effect. From what can be read on the faces of a crowd watching a confusing scene unfold, we saw trepidation and uneasiness. We think that our provocation, and their reaction, showed their true colors: that they respond to criticism with repression and call it de-escalation.