"It was September 2, about 11:30 pm on a Tuesday night. Tuesdays are unofficially "dolls night" on Capitol Hill, when trans women hop between Time Warp and Pony, two bars in the city's queer neighborhood. The frantic woman the men had followed is trans, as are Carstens and her friends, Michelle Caywood and Denise Throckmorton. The men fanned out on the sidewalk."
""Bitch, bitch, bitch" one of the men shouted repeatedly. "Tr-y," another yelled. To the side, one danced like a boxer before a fight. He grabbed at his waistband, Carstens said. It could've been a nervous tic, but she worried that he had a gun. "I don't think we're going to be able to, like, run away from this," she remembers thinking. Sidling up to her friends, she withdrew the pepper gel canister on a keychain in her purse."
On September 2 around 11:30 pm on Capitol Hill, a group of trans women was accosted outside the Maserati dealership near 12th and Union while heading between queer bars. Six or seven young men followed and fanned out on the sidewalk, shouting taunts and making threatening gestures. One man appeared to reach toward his waistband, prompting fear of a weapon. A pepper gel canister was deployed in self-defense, after which aggressive punches were thrown. Michelle Caywood was knocked down and Madison Carstens was punched, hitting her head and losing consciousness while Denise Throckmorton leapt in to try to protect her and was struck.
Read at Portland Mercury
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