Early in life I learned that if I wanted to make a difference in the world I needed to learn patience. In the first instance this was because when I first became self-aware, I couldn't get directly involved in any kind of social change work because I was only eight years old. By the time I was ready to, around my fifteenth birthday, I had come to understand that change is often a drawn-out process over multiple generations, with its ultimate fruition sometimes only manifesting toward the end in a seemingly sudden, unexpected fashion. So even as I got involved in political activity, it was with the understanding that I couldn't necessarily expect to see the difference I was making in real time. I just had to be satisfied that there was a rational basis for believing that what I was doing would ultimately matter. Fortunately, since I'm someone who lives for meaning, this was sufficient motivation, since I could feel the gratification of "meaningness" from my activity in real time even if visible results took longer.
That said, it doesn't hurt when occasionally you see the proof that you haven't been fooling yourself. I bought the now rather worn T-shirt you see above on October 16, 2016, at the world premiere of the men's rights documentary The Red Pill in Greenwich Village, where I also got the chance to meet filmmaker Cassie Jaye and her co-producer Nena Jaye as well as A Voice for Men's Paul Elam, Karen Straughan (GirlWritesWhat), and Honey Badger Brigade founder Alison Tieman, to whom I presented a big valentine reflecting my crush on her.
To confound stereotypes on either side of the issue (I thought there might be protesters), I came to the premiere wearing a pink Planned Parenthood T-shirt I'd acquired recently at a volunteer appreciation dinner after several months of serving as a clinic escort, something I still do. I subsequently did the inverse by wearing the TRP T-shirt while marching with PP at Philadelphia's Pride parade in 2018 and '19.
Aside from special occasions like those, it's just been another shirt I sometimes wear in regular alternation with the rest. Until last weekend it had only elicited comment a few times, but at a party I attended Sunday someone was very interested, and when I told him what it was about, right there he took out his phone, went to IMDb, and added TRP as well as Cassie Jaye's two previous features, Daddy I Do and The Right to Love: An American Family to his watch list! All at no prompting from me.
Again, this is visible results. For all I know many others who saw the shirt over the past nine years may have been prompted to look the movie up for themselves without ever engaging me in conversation about it. What happened Sunday represents the minimum of the total impact wearing the shirt may have had so far.
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