How to Stop Breaking Boundaries in Inboxes

 CW: this post, unlike my others, is not about hair related topics. It brings up some emotionally heavy topics but I highly recommend reading if you are one of the following: white, able bodied, cisgender (identify with the gender you were assigned at birth), straight, not apart of an actively hated religious group, etc. any ONE of these categories.

So, the topic is HEAVY today, but is important and something I have happen, and others have happen, and I discuss relatively often with other marginalized folks in my life. It’s forms of boundary breaking that have become easier it’s the age of the internet, and if you haven’t experienced it, you’re probably guilty of doing it. It comes in many forms - so let’s dive in.

I am a very open and vulnerable person on the internet, and this leads people to a few different things: it’s okay to use me as a therapist; that I will discuss any traumatic event happening to the LGBTQ community; that I have never ending amounts of energy to educate. Now, this happens often, and I’ve talked to enough BIPOC friends to know it happens to them too. So let’s get a little more specific - and let’s really get into why this is so upsetting. Marginalized groups of people have varying levels of trauma and pain that you may not understand depending on your place in the world. BIPOC people and Jewish people for instance, have generational trauma that you can be born with - we especially see this in Black and Jewish communities because of slavery and the Holocaust. BIPOC and LGBTQ communities have internalized and institutionalized hate towards them because our entire society is created around laws, beauty standards, and even jokes at their expense. If you’re a white, cis, LGB person you do not experience the world in the same painful way even as a white trans person does, and most certainly not the way even a Black cis person does, and especially not a Black LGBTQ person. What’s my point? People like to go to marginalized groups of people and trauma dump on them, and they will get defensive when corrected. Let’s go through a few scenarios. I hope you’re still with me.

1. You come across an article for instance about ____ people and you actually read it. It has a *profound* affect on you and you feel like you *really get it* now. Instead of sharing this article with other non-____ people in hopes that they too will *get it* or using what you learned from the article to stand up for ___ people - all you do is send it to a ____ person you know, say you care, and expect a gold star slapped on your forehead. THIS is inappropriate. The ___ person doesn’t need to read the article based on their own life experiences. You have really only done the bare minimum here by reading. Go out and make a difference now, don’t expect a round of applause from this ____ person you know. 
2. You come across an article about violence against a certain group of people and you send it to someone who fits into that category of people like CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS HORRIBLE THING HAPPENED? Blah blah it makes you sad. Whatever. Have you considered that this person may have trauma around this topic/sending them this could be devastating to their mental health? Example: I don’t need articles about violence against trans people sent to me. Especially sober, I live in a world that I know it is risky to walk down the street. When I went to see a trans performer a few weeks ago, I both felt excitement and unsettling fear that I would never come back out of that venue. That is the tension I walk through this world having. And I have it because I am visibly trans to some people, and there are plenty of people who want trans people to be dead.
3. You see yourself as an ally. You’re “liberal”. You may even fall into a category of marginalization, but presumably you’re white, cis, and maybe LGB for instance but would never necessarily be assumed to be queer by just looking at you. But anyway, you’re an ally, right? You feel like you’re not racist/homophobic/transphobic, etc. but you’re grappling with this one feeling of one of those biases. You reach out to someone from that broad group, and tell them about your problematic feeling wanting to discuss it with them. You don’t ask if they have the capacity, or ask for consent. You don’t ask how their mental health is or consider whether this is even a topic they feel comfortable speaking on, so you expect them to hold your hand and walk you through your internalized bias or hate - not realizing that that is work you should be doing on your own (maybe with a therapist) instead of trying to get someone who is already walking through the world with pain and unease to guide you through.
4. Someone shares a post on their story about a sensitive topic that’s informative and helpful. You take that as a cue to again, without consent or consideration for their well-being, to dump on this person about a traumatic event that happened to you in grave detail. 

These are all examples of inappropriate behavior. I could list more, but goddamn this is already lengthy as hell. I want to say that I realize that often times these actions are not met with ill intent. They’re not malicious, but they definitely come from a place of lack of understanding and experience. I’m going to try and give a few examples of what ifs that will maybe help you *get it* in a more relatable way, because even often I see (especially older, didn’t grow up with the internet and haven’t had over a decade of bad news shoved in their face for their formative years) just…not get it. And either get defensive in one of two ways: 1. My intent wasn’t bad! But because you’re now mad and setting a boundary, I will never try to do a nice (???) thing for this group of people again! 2. My intent wasn’t bad! I’ve been doing *lists “the work” here* but also wanted to use your emotional labor to help me do the work! Why are you upset? That seems unfair!”

So, here are a few examples I can think of that maybe will help YOU…get it. But definitely trigger warning for speaking about the aids crisis and queer violence.

You are a cis, white, LGB person. It is the height of the AIDS crisis and we have social media like we do now. Every time you go onto a platform, you have community there which is beautiful and comforting - but you also are constantly shown hate speech spoken by random people, internet famous people, politicians, religious groups, etc. about how disgusting gay people are. How evil aids is. How these people need to be banned from places, etc. every time you open an app. It’s there. You’re having a rough day, life is hard. You’re going through a traumatic period in history - your history - and all of a sudden someone sends you a message, unwarranted, to show you an article about how many people this crisis has affected and says “I care.” OR someone comes into your inbox, unwarranted, to show you an article of gay hate crimes like OMG HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? Can you believe it? Talking, talking, talking, not even considering how hyper aware of this violence you already are. OR someone comes into your inbox, you’re a queer woman, they’re unwarranted, with something like “what are your thoughts on gay men using public pools? I don’t have a problem with gay men, but they could have HIV so I’m just trying to think of a way that it’s fair for everyone, for them to use public pools.” You yourself are not a gay man and don’t really have authority on this topic (you probably have some thoughts, sure) but you also don’t like swimming pools and never really go to the public pool. You’re also in the midst of being depressed and down from the constant anti-gay chatter, and fearing for your own rights and safety, that you might just not have it in you right now to talk about this persons personal struggle with their feelings around an LGBTQ internalized bias this person is struggling with. Or imagine social media exists the way it does now during the Holocaust, and you’re not in immediate danger (maybe you don’t live in Europe but are a Jewish American) and people are constantly doing these types of messages at you about what’s going on in Germany (and elsewhere). It takes a toll, y’all. The marginalized and othered people in your life (or in your scope of social media) are tired. And we can’t be your dumping ground for your thoughts and feelings around very real issues that affect very real lives. It is, in short, not fair to do this to people who are already struggling. Oh, and I can assure you - only sending the people you know that fall into any of these categories POSITIVE stories and articles and never acknowledging the bad is also harmful, toxic positivity. If you can only acknowledge the good just to say something like “things are getting better” but ignoring the dozens of horror stories happening at the same time, you’d honestly be better off saying nothing.

As a former writer, I’ve never been great at the closing paragraph. It’s my weak spot. So I have no idea how to end this other than saying - I hope this was helpful. Please stop expecting us to hold your hand and walk you through your own process in learning. Stop using us as emotional dumping grounds. Stop getting defensive and just listen. And please don’t come to me asking for more emotional labor than I just have writing this whole thing up.