Pick Up the Pace
by Jem Ashton
Walking the dogs can be a frustrating experience all year round, but especially in the Fall. Denuding trees drop scents from the skies. These scents, unreachable to my dogs at all other times of the year, are now conveniently at their level and the temptation to tear away from the sidewalk to stick their noses in any pile we pass is high. In the late afternoon of December 9th, 2024, they were on their best behavior. I felt proud of them and, after an unusually busy weekend, I was relieved to be sharing an hour of peace with my pets.
As we walked down 900 East, a fairly busy commuter road just outside the heart of Salt Lake City, I heard a voice behind us. I ignore voices. It’s none of my business.
Dolly, my boyfriend’s dog and the older of the two, gently diverged from our path to sniff a tree trunk. This was acceptable - a gentle request to explore the olfactory world that is essential to their being but a mystery to me. Giving her time with the tree trunk, I stopped walking. My booted footsteps ceased; the auditory layer of our environment quietened. The voice that was behind us became more apparent.
I looked toward the approaching figure and his words became clear. He was saying faggot.
“Faggot! Yeah, I’m talking to you, faggot!”
Dolly wasn’t done sniffing, but we had to go. I had to go. The dogs were still ignoring the voice, but it was now all I could think about. No more sniffing. I quickened my pace. The voice continued to call out. Faggot, faggot, faggot in repetition among other words I couldn’t quite make out. We turned a corner and he stopped, but the voice kept rushing through my head. I didn’t slow down.
When we got home, I let my boyfriend, Kyson, know the dogs were on their best behavior. They did a great job and it was a good walk.
“...and some guy called me a faggot.”
It’s his instinct to try to solve my problems, even ones like this. He wanted to figure out some way to report this guy.
“There has to be somebody to call.”
There isn’t though. There’s nobody to call when you’re called a faggot. What good would it do? Technically, I could report a case of harassment to the police, but it’s not like it will actually do anything. They can’t do anything when “some guy called me fag on 900 East.” Regardless, I appreciate Kyson’s instinct to make it better. We should expect the world to be better. We should expect to feel safe.
This dog walking route is one I’ve always felt safe on. It’s become the standard, the one we go on most, because it’s where I had never been called a fag before. I’ve been called a fag in Liberty Park, downtown, or on busier roads plenty of times. On the nearly empty sidewalks of the quiet neighborhoods surrounding our home, it had never happened. I was taken by surprise.
In the past couple years, I’ve been called a fag more than ever. Despite the fact I’ve done everything I can to draw less attention to myself. I’ve deliberately started dressing in generally more “masculine” clothes - at least when I know I’m going to be alone. When I know I’m going to be safe in a safe place with safe people, I’ll go ahead and fag out a bit. Otherwise, I’ll do what I can to draw the least amount of attention. On the walk, I was wearing jeans and a completely unremarkable winter coat. I felt unremarkable.
“I just don’t understand what I’m doing,” I say, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
In the past, I wasn’t so afraid and I didn’t give a fuck about how people would react to me. I was wearing purses on a daily basis (they’re convenient), I’d wear makeup, I’d wear outrightly feminine clothes. I was so much faggier, but I was rarely the target of harassment. Now, I won’t even use a tote bag, I never wear makeup, and I go full “normcore” most days. I’m more of a target than ever.
To be fair, I dropped the makeup more so because it didn’t fit the vibe I’m going for anymore. The purses, however, I stopped using after some old guy in the neighborhood yelled out “eww, it’s even got a purse” a few years back on another dog walk. The rest has changed gradually after years of voices calling fag have gathered in my mind.
Each time it happens, it brings attention to how much of myself I’ve stripped away to feel safe - to feel like I’ve decreased the chances of being unsafe - only for it to have not really made a difference. I’m dressing differently, I’m being perceived the same. Men on the street are still calling me a fag. I am still a fag.
The harassment is more common now, but it isn’t new. When I was 19, I was leaving the train station on my way home from work close to midnight when a man approached me from behind, grabbed my shoulder, forcibly turned me around, then said “oh, sorry, I thought you were a bitch.” Nope, just a faggot. It was on my way to this same job on another occasion in broad daylight when a group of younger teens slowed their car to yell out “dick or pussy?” Both instances were months apart. I reacted to both feeling weirdly satisfied rather than scared. Oh so you think I’m pussy?
The underlying threat of violence has always been there, but it didn’t click until an instance a couple years ago. It was near the end of Summer and I had started a new job at an environmental nonprofit after graduating with my bachelor’s degree. I was working on moving our office to a new location: packing, packing, moving, packing. I was in shorts, listening to music, kind of prancing around. I was having a good time. Then, a man on the street very aggressively said that word.
Faggot!
I’d heard it before. No big deal.
I’ll stick a knife up your ass faggot!
That was new to me. I hurried into the office and I locked the door. He came up to the window and kept saying it. I picked up my phone and mocked a phone call, which prompted him to leave. Maybe this was one time when I should have called the police. It was a real threat of violence. They never would have come in time to do anything about it though. He had already turned down another street, never to be seen again. So I thought. The next day, there he was again. I went inside. He was yelling the same things, this time adding slurs that didn’t even apply to me, but he didn’t come to the window. He just kept yelling as he made his way down the same path as the day before.
This is when it finally clicked that anyone who’s called me a fag out on the street genuinely wishes harm upon me. They want me to be hurt and they might even want me to be dead.
It was also the kick-off of a long year of being the target of harassment with unusual frequency. At least once a week, somebody would call me a fag and I’d hear that threat of violence.
It would come in places where I used to feel safe: crowded parks, busy streets, the grocery store. Each time, I’d ask myself, “what did I do?”
The frequency has lessened a bit now - maybe just once a month - but I know that’s in part because I’m hiding more. I don’t walk the dogs in the park as often. I’m more cautious in public when I’m alone. I’m doing more to just look less gay.
I don’t know what’s changed in my community. I could probably find a way to neatly tie it to the political moment, but I honestly don’t care what the source of the problem is. Whatever it is, I know it’s largely out of my control and I can’t do anything about it. I feel powerless. I feel like I’m in danger. I feel like I need to get out of here.
That feeling became very clear in my mind after a trip to New York City earlier this year. I was visiting my cousin in Brooklyn for a weekend. We saw an extremely gay play, we were going to gay bars, guys were winking at me and waving hello, we were making sweet conversations with people everywhere we went, and it felt cartoonishly welcoming overall. I was enthralled, I felt at ease, and I felt safe. Then, the day after I got back to Salt Lake City, I was paying for parking at my gym when I turned around and the guy standing behind me in line looked at me dead in the eye and said, “fucking faggot.” The first words a stranger said to me after returning from my trip.
Maybe, despite being a “blue bubble,” Salt Lake City isn’t the hub of progressiveness that it claims to be. It’s still in Utah, one of the reddest states we’ve got.
I know New York City has its share of assholes. I’d be called a fag there too, I’m sure of it. I’d just hope it’s more often in a way I like it, because I do like it sometimes in a kind of fucked up twist. But it can’t be coming from some random asshole on the street, especially not as often as it happens now. It’s a cutting word that’s severed me from my sense of place and my sense of community here in Utah. I have a wonderful community here, but it’s shrinking as people move away. Maybe it’s time for me to pack up and go find a community somewhere else. This is a problem I don’t mind running away from.