Thread by @thecoachkessler

Several of us have been chatting about “cancel culture” and speculating as to its origins, acknowledging damage done by this type of engagement.

I would like to offer some thoughts on what I believe to be the formative soil of this culture in hopes of softening our posture. 1/

Those of us who share this space and engage with one another typically overlap in one of the following areas:

•progressive politic
•background in the Christian faith
•LGBTQ+ experience or allyship

We gravitate towards one another in this virtual space due to shared POV.

However, for those of us who share a faith background AND identify as LGBTQ+, there is a certain repetitive trauma that fuels “cancel culture” that we might be may be missing entirely in our efforts to be well-read, well-liked, or understood.

Most of us who identify as #faithfullyLGBT (or did, at one time) were effectively “cancelled” by our respective churches, families, and communities when we came out.

We were told that their certainty superseded our honesty and we lost jobs, faith communities, & reputations.

And then, we found communities that not only resembled ourselves but also resembled what we lost. Our shared triumph in coming out mirrored our shared trauma in losing what we had known of our lives.

The homogenous community which shared a belief system some of us shunned was replaced by another system - homogenous in a different set of experiences and beliefs.

We all clung to one another, as communities do, and in real life, many of us have built really beautiful and rich relational intimacy. Some of our online relationships blossomed into these real-life relationships. And we felt as if we had found our people.

But at some point...

Someone in our shared community expressed an opinion we didn’t think they should have.

Asked a question we thought they should already know.

Dissented in a way that felt like an affront to our shared sense of belonging and humanity.

And somehow, overnight, we became - in our engagement - the exact type of engagement that pushed us out of the community to which we first felt some semblance of belonging.

In order to protect this new community, something called “cancel culture” emerged to silence those of who disagree and dehumanize people whose views threaten our own and perhaps even threaten our sense of security and trauma.

This, my friends, is a trauma cycle.

Perhaps unknowingly, many of us became so invested in the possibility of a brand new community - that understands us, shares most of our beliefs, and holds us up when we need it - that we forgot to also be a gracious container for each other to learn and grow.

I am continually inspired by the folks in this community who brave criticism in order to fight oppression. But I would hope that we would also fight oppression within our own communities by refusing to ever dehumanize another human, regardless of their question or opinion.

As @aliciatcrosby already pointed out, if we are not willing to invest in the *relationships* within our communities on an intimate, relational level, then we have no business pretending that our online communities are as close-knit as we purport.

I would like to invite everyone on this space who has been walking on eggshells in fear of being “cancelled,” who has been “cancelled,” or who has ever “cancelled” someone else to gently consider one another’s humanity.

Working out our humanity in public, online spaces is a very new way of being. We are the ones pioneering this engagement.

And I am quite certain none of us want to perpetuate the rejection and “cancellation” culture we experienced prior to engaging in these spaces.

In order to change the trajectory of our dialogue, it is imperative that we all reflect back on how being “cancelled” from our families, churches, and communities impacted us on a deep *soul* level and then **insist** that we do not repeat that pattern with each other.

We arrived in our respective online communities not because we were born into the beliefs we now hold but because our former beliefs & communities were burned down by vitriol & lack of grace.

May we not be guilty of holding the torch which engulfs another’s life in flames.

Rather, may we employ compassion, graciousness, curiosity, correction - sure - but in kindness.

May we invite learning and even a differing of views, lest we invite the narrative that to belong means to be the same in all manner of believing.