In the last decade or so, there has been an awareness that when you get groups of people together, there will be shitty people who need rules to keep them acting right–or to kick them out if need be. I mean, this has always been true because people are going to people. There are shitty people everywhere, and if you let them act up–they are going to act the fuck up.
Side Note (Yes this early!): I have gotten into several debates over tolerance versus acceptance. I am for tolerance because that’s much easier to achieve than acceptance and because quite frankly, I don’t have a high opinion of people. It takes a lot to change people’s hearts; it’s much easier to change their behavior.
In general, I still hold to tolerance over acceptance. I mean, you don’t have to like me, but you have to treat me like a human being. However, when it comes to safe spaces, that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
When I was in my twenties, I had just discovered that I was attracted to women as well as men. Now, I would amend that to I’m attracted to people of all, any, or no gender. Anyway. I got involved in queer theater and in Asian theater (sadly, separate) and in the former, there was a woman-only performance festival that I participated in. It was clearly stated that it was for women only. People who identified as women, I mean. Which I did at the time. Trans women were included under that umbrella. This was before nonbinary became a known gender, but I would like to think they would have been included. Agender like me? I don’t know beacuse we never get mentioned/thoughht of.
Anyway, it was really cool to perform in front of women only, and I stripped down to my panties by the end of my performance. There’s no way I would have done that in front of men at that age. Hell, I probably wouldn’t do it now in front of men, but for different reasons.
That was a safe space before it was really a thing, and I was very glad to have that opportunity. I felt secure and safe in performing a risque performance under those circumstances. Hell, I probably could have and should have taken off my panties as well (I was using pieces of clothing as different parts of my identity) without feeling threatened.
My issue with safe spaces is that it’s often just a sign and a list of printed rules, and that’s the extent of keeping the space safe. That’s not nearly enough. You have to actually enforce the rules on a consistent basis or they don’t mean shit. This is not rocket science, but it’s hard to do on a regular basis–especially in online forums.
What I have found is that when you leave it to the people in the forum/channel/convention to enforce the rules, it’s not going to happen. Why? Because one, they don’t have the authority. More importantly, though, you can’t really police an equal if you don’t have anyone backing you up.