"I don’t condone the harassment, but if it comes down to protecting the mental health of a transphobe versus the mental health of trans folks, well - sorry, but I’m choosing the latter."
I think an area where this gets tricky is what do people consider problematic? Sure, a lot of transphobia (and other bigotry) is totally obvious, but I'm sure we all know how there's many points of contention in social justice spaces.
Here's some examples: some people consider using the words "stupid" or "crazy" to be ableist hate speech. Others believe that if someone doesn't actively speak up against something, they're a bigot. For example, this came up once on a Discord I moderated: someone recommended a book, then someone else said that the book had racist content. The person replied "Yeah, I know." The person who complained that the book had racist content came to the mod team and asked us to admonish the person for downplaying the racism in the book and worried that they were a bigot. In another space, someone was called out as queerphobic for expressing concern that the proliferation of labels and emphasis on finding the perfect specific label can hinder a person's identity development and well-being.
Any of us who has spent time in these spaces can probably come up with a bunch more examples. It's obvious that nuance is lost in a lot of these discussions and "bigot" is thrown around as an ad hominem attack instead of actually figuring out what a person believes.
In this situation, it would be up to the people who run the blog to determine what's problematic and what's not, and that situation gets sticky fast. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't delete posts, just that it's not always clear what's going on in any given situation, and it's certainly likely that someone could be labeled as bigoted when they aren't, especially given that the FR audience has many young teens who have exposure to toxic social justice-oriented spaces.
And on that note, even if a young teen says something bigoted, I don't think they should receive harassment. 14-year-olds say all kinds of dumb shit, sometimes just parroted from adults in their life, and I'd hate to see an actual child's mental health be negatively affected. They do not have the perspective, resources, and coping mechanisms most adults do.
Re: SA
I think an area where this gets tricky is what do people consider problematic? Sure, a lot of transphobia (and other bigotry) is totally obvious, but I'm sure we all know how there's many points of contention in social justice spaces.
Here's some examples: some people consider using the words "stupid" or "crazy" to be ableist hate speech. Others believe that if someone doesn't actively speak up against something, they're a bigot. For example, this came up once on a Discord I moderated: someone recommended a book, then someone else said that the book had racist content. The person replied "Yeah, I know." The person who complained that the book had racist content came to the mod team and asked us to admonish the person for downplaying the racism in the book and worried that they were a bigot. In another space, someone was called out as queerphobic for expressing concern that the proliferation of labels and emphasis on finding the perfect specific label can hinder a person's identity development and well-being.
Any of us who has spent time in these spaces can probably come up with a bunch more examples. It's obvious that nuance is lost in a lot of these discussions and "bigot" is thrown around as an ad hominem attack instead of actually figuring out what a person believes.
In this situation, it would be up to the people who run the blog to determine what's problematic and what's not, and that situation gets sticky fast. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't delete posts, just that it's not always clear what's going on in any given situation, and it's certainly likely that someone could be labeled as bigoted when they aren't, especially given that the FR audience has many young teens who have exposure to toxic social justice-oriented spaces.
And on that note, even if a young teen says something bigoted, I don't think they should receive harassment. 14-year-olds say all kinds of dumb shit, sometimes just parroted from adults in their life, and I'd hate to see an actual child's mental health be negatively affected. They do not have the perspective, resources, and coping mechanisms most adults do.