Let’s talk more about safe spaces and why it’s so hard to make a space even minimally space. Well, it’s not hard, per se, but it’s difficult. I’ll explain more in a bit.
In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how it’s much harder to establish a safe space than it was to have a base tolerance for diversity. Back in the aughts when the question of queer rights became more visible, I was more on the side of tolerance rather than acceptantce because you can’t really mandate feelings and because tolerance is a much lower bar to clear. As to the question of legality, I would much rather get a law pass with the straights hating it but following it than waiting until they accept/are positive on it.
I still hold that to be true of laws because we need our legal rights protected (as we see now that they’re getting repealed and rolled back left and right), but it’s different when it comes to safe spaces. This is supposed to be a place where we’re not merely tolerated, but embraced and meant to feel included.
Side note: There is a robust debate about inclusivity versus diversity, and I do not want to get into that in this post. For the purpose of this post, I will just say that I do think both are important and leave it at that.
Back to safe spaces.
I haven’t been involved in any community lately that has explicitly stated it’s a safe space with specific parameters. I think it’s easy at the very top level. No isms allowed. Easy-peasy. Until you drill down into what that actually means. Obviously, no overt racism, sexism, queerphobia, gender hatred, religious intolerance*, etc.
