Promoting Security Culture
Not to endorse every word of this reference on security culture for activists, but for anyone genuinely concerned about movement disruption and infiltration, the advice it contains to just work on rejecting bad behavior in the movement is sound.
If someone is doxing other people, threatening people, showing up in person to get very aggressive or encouraging that behavior in others, targeting people they know to be emotionally vulnerable (like people in recovery) to try and get a rise out of them, lying about people, sharing personal details to try and shame others, or generally encouraging unwise behavior that you’re concerned may have serious consequences, it doesn’t matter why they’re doing that. It’s destructive regardless of the motivation.
If the person refuses to be more reasonable after good faith attempts at dialogue, stop engaging with them. Resist the temptation to use slurs or wish harm on them. Refuse to fulfill what may simply be the psychological hunger among very damaged people for sustained chaotic engagement, and their desire to reset social norms so that everyone else has to either act like that or get ignored.
No one has (yet) made it illegal to say that people can’t change sex, that children shouldn’t be sterilized for cosmetic reasons, or that women and girls deserve bodily privacy from men and female-only sporting competitions. If you hold these opinions, congratulations; you’re in the absolute majority of human opinion and you aren’t doing anything wrong.
The first, best thing radical feminists and our gender critical allies can do is to remain calm and base our arguments in facts, to the best of our ability. If someone’s really convinced that sex is a “social fiction,” or that it doesn’t matter if the laws that protect women’s rights to single-sex accommodations can be struck down without consequence, you’re probably not going to change their mind. But if you sound like a reasonable person while you’re making your case in opposition, that counts with whomever else is listening.
The second best thing to do is to treat each other like people you might have to see every day for a long time, and refuse to act like SJW posers from the “everyone I don’t like is Hitler” school of maximum antagonism. Sure, if someone is engaging in behavior on the level of posting “white genocide” claims, using slurs, essentializing personality traits or stereotypes to ethnicities, sharing anti-Semitic propaganda, or comparing people of other ethnicities to vermin, call that out. Otherwise, consider that they’re probably not bidding on Third Reich memorabilia on eBay, because there really aren’t very many people like that. This is especially the case if you’re white, where no one really needs your services as the thought police of unfashionable phraseology; almost anything else you could legally do with your time is probably more useful.
Third, if you’re still following along, pick a goal to work towards, start coming up with measurable things to do to try and achieve it, and find people to work with towards those ends who all bring out the best in each other. This fosters respect among peers, builds reserves of good will, mitigates against feelings of isolation, and even offers the possibility that people who don’t like each other much can build bridges based upon appreciation for each other’s work. It’s the best curative known for the desperate stagnation of enforced idleness.
So please, sisters, friends, we urge you all to remain calm. Take care of yourselves and encourage each other to be your best. When people are annoying on the internet, take a deep breath (us too,) and try not to go with your first, or most inflammatory, assumptions about why they’re acting like that. Probably, they are just jerks, and a waste of your time.
