Two weeks ago, I had to leave an online space.
It was an oasis-in-a-desert type of online space. If you’re in a marginalized group, you know exactly the space I am talking about: the kind where it’s a safe haven, a group to contrast the harshness of the rest of the platform. No microaggressions (hopefully), calling in (as opposed to calling out) where it’s warranted (and the concerns actually heard), but most importantly: you get to be yourself.
In this instance, I was able to be Black without worrying about the white gaze; I could be unfiltered without creative code words to talk about my experiences.
Then the cishets ruined my chill. As usual.
As tempted as I am to relay in excruciating detail, I’ll hold my tongue on the specifics. Because honestly, I’ve done this song and dance too many times to not collapse it into one narrative. But one thing stood out to me about all this, is that this space tried.
They specifically noted in their guidelines that anti-queer sentiment was not tolerated. And yet, a post by a trans woman turned ugly real fast when a cisgender heterosexual man commented the usual transphobic notion that trans women might try to trick him into sleeping with them.
And the only people calling him out (and in my case, cussing him out) were other transgender people. The mods stepped in late into the game after the heavy lifting was already done. And after we used the dedicated venting space to, well, vent about this incident, the mods suggested we become mods ourselves.
Months later and that suggestion still bothers me. Because, holy shit, instead of taking out the fucking trash you gotta make your minority in a minority do your dirty work? You couldn’t do your own due diligence, as a mod and self-proclaimed ally, to clean up the mess your peers have made?
Listen.
I’m all for education. I’m all for people getting called out or in. I’m all for spaces that allow growth from being told bluntly or sweetly that you’re wrong, and this is why, and you should stop doing that.
But it’d be nice to let the rest of us know about it, first.
Because if I knew my membership dues were tolerating willful ignorance and sealioning under the guise of Educating Them, I would not have bothered joining.
Because if I knew this space was just going to be a sea of unchecked bigotry that I would have to wade through constantly because the moderators don’t care about the safety and well-being of all of their members, I would have scrolled past.
Because (and this has to be in threes), if you’re so committed to not throwing anyone out of the group, even if they have repeatedly spouted harmful rhetoric, even if they have repeatedly made the space unsafe for some members, then I would have told you to fuck off.
I am a fierce defender of the spaces I call mine.
While I do agree with spaces that are a little forgiving for people that don’t know better (or simply didn’t know), my tolerance tends to be lower than most for two reasons. Both have me occasionally clash with how some spaces are ran:
I’ve dealt with too much damn trolling to tolerate that bullshitI’m more aware of common bad faith arguments and derailment techniques… and therefore have no patience for them, and- I’m a subscriber to Good is Not Nice. My interpretation is this: I won’t sugar coat my language, and I will certainly cuss your ass out if I get mad enough.
And for my spaces, I run them differently: there is room to grow but the safety of my members is paramount. And if a member is constantly making others unsafe or otherwise jeopardizes their well-being, well. They’ll just have to learn elsewhere.
It crystalizes into my first rule: No one’s safety is worth anyone else’s lessons.
And if a space appears to not adhere to this, I just leave. I fight too many battles as it is. Some, alone, and I don’t want to add another where the tide may be against me.
The last comment I replied to was somesuch bullshit about trans women. At this point he was a broken record of willful ignorance. I’ve lost track of my comments, and how many people have tried talking to him. And there were more like him that wouldn’t be thrown off the island, so to speak.
So I said, simply, “shut up.”
And I left the group.
