You Are Triggering Me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma - Bully Bloggers PDF

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You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal

Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma
by Jack Halberstam
I was watching Monty Python’s The Life of Brian from 1979 recently, a hilarious rewriting of the
life and death of Christ, and I realized how outrageous most of the jokes from the film would
seem today. In fact, the film, with its religious satire and scenes of Christ and the thieves singing
on the cross, would never make it into cinemas now. The Life of Brian was certainly received as
controversial in its own day but when censors tried to repress the film in several different
countries, The Monty Python crew used their florid sense of humor to their advantage. So,
when the film was banned in a few places, they gave it a tagline of: “So funny it was banned in
Norway!”
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/12fdfd9731cdf4f49bdc347bb7841489.jpg)
Humor, in fact, in general, depends upon the unexpected (“No one expects the Spanish
Inquisition!”); repetition to the point of hilarity “you can have eggs, bacon and spam; spam,
eggs, spam and sausage; or spam, spam, spam and spam!”); silliness, non-sequitors, caricature
and an anarchic blend of the serious and the satirical. And, humor is something that feminists in
particular, but radical politics in general, are accused of lacking. Recent controversies within
queer communities around language, slang, satirical or ironic representation and perceptions of
harm or offensive have created much controversy with very li le humor recently, leading to
demands for bans, censorship and name changes.
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/feminist_humor_ .jpg)Debates among

people who share utopian goals, in fact, are nothing new. I remember coming out in the 1970s
and 1980s into a world of cultural feminism and lesbian separatism. Hardly an event would go
by back then without someone feeling violated, hurt, traumatized by someone’s poorly phrased
question, another person’s bad word choice or even just the hint of perfume in the room. People
with various kinds of fatigue, easily activated allergies, poorly managed trauma were constantly
holding up proceedings to shout in loud voices about how bad they felt because someone had
said, smoked, or sprayed something near them that had fouled up their breathing room. Others
made adjustments, curbed their use of deodorant, tried to avoid patriarchal language, thought
before they spoke, held each other, cried, moped, and
ultimately disintegrated into a messy, unappealing morass of
weepy, hypo-allergic, psychosomatic, anti-sex, anti-fun, anti-
porn, pro-drama, pro-processing post-political subjects.
Political times change and as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s,
as weepy white lady feminism gave way to reveal a multi-
racial, poststructuralist, intersectional feminism of much
longer provenance, people began to laugh, loosened up,
people got over themselves and began to talk and recognize
that the enemy was not among us but embedded within new,
rapacious economic systems. Needless to say, for women of
color feminisms, the stakes have always been higher and
identity politics always have played out differently. But, in the
1990s, books on neoliberalism, postmodernism, gender
performativity and racial capital turned the focus away from
the wounded self and we found our enemies and, as we spoke out and observed that neoliberal
forms of capitalism were covering over economic exploitation with language of freedom and
liberation, it seemed as if we had given up wounded selves for new formulations of multitudes,
collectivities, collaborations, and projects less centered upon individuals and their woes. Of
course, I am fla ening out all kinds of historical and cultural variations within multiple histories
of feminism, queerness and social movements. But I am willing to do so in order to make a
point here about the re-emergence of a rhetoric of harm and trauma that casts all social
difference in terms of hurt feelings and that divides up politically allied subjects into hierarchies
of woundedness.
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/four-yorkshire-men11.png)
At this point, we should recall the “four Yorkshire men” skit from Monty Python where the four
old friends reminisce about their deprived childhoods – one says “we used to live in a tiny old
tumbledown house…” the next counters with “house!? You were lucky to live in a house. We
used to live in a room…” And the third jumps in with: “room? You were lucky to have a room,
we used to have to live in a corridor.” The fourth now completes the cycle: “A corridor! We
dreamed of living in a corridor!” These hardship competitions, but without the humor, are set
pieces among the triggered generation and indeed, I rarely go to a conference, festival or
gathering anymore without a protest erupting about a mode of representation that triggered
someone somewhere. And as people “call each other out” to a chorus of finger snapping, we
seem to be rapidly losing all sense of perspective and instead of building alliances, we are
dismantling hard fought for coalitions.
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/tsss2012-postcard.jpeg)
Much of the recent discourse of offense and harm has focused on language, slang and naming.
For example, controversies erupted in the last few months over the name of a longstanding
nightclub in San Francisco: “Trannyshack,” and arguments ensued about whether the word
“tranny” should ever be used. These debates led some people to distraction, and legendary
queer performer, Justin Vivian Bond, posted an open le er on her Facebook page telling readers
and fans in no uncertain terms that she is “angered by this trifling bullshit.” Bond reminded
readers that many people are “delighted to be trannies” and not delighted to be shamed into
silence by the “word police.” Bond and others have also referred to the queer custom of re-
appropriating terms of abuse and turning them into affectionate terms of endearment. When we
obliterate terms like “tranny” in the quest for respectability and assimilation, we actually feed
back into the very ideologies that produce the homo and trans phobia in the first place! In The
Life of Brian, Brian finally refuses to participate in the anti-Semitism that causes his mother to
call him a “roman.” In a brave “coming out” speech, he says: “I’m not a roman mum, I’m a kike,
a yid, a heebie, a hook-nose, I’m kosher mum, I’m a Red Sea pedestrian, and proud of it!
And now for something completely different…The controversy about the term “tranny” is not a
singular occurrence; such tussles have become a rather predictable and regular part of all kinds
of conferences and meetings. Indeed, it is becoming difficult to speak, to perform, to offer up
work nowadays without someone, somewhere claiming to feel hurt, or re-traumatized by a
cultural event, a painting, a play, a speech, a casual use of slang, a characterization, a caricature
and so on whether or not the “damaging” speech/characterization occurs within a complex
aesthetic work. At one conference, a play that foregrounded the mutilation of the female body in
the 17th century was cast as trans-phobic and became the occasion for multiple public meetings
to discuss the damage it wreaked upon trans people present at the performance. Another piece
at this performance conference that featured a “fortune teller” character was accused of
orientalist stereotyping. At another event I a ended that focused on queer masculinities, the
organizers were accused of marginalizing queer femininities. And a class I was teaching
recently featured a young person who reported feeling worried about potentially “triggering” a
transgender student by using incorrect pronouns in relation to a third student who did not
seem bothered by it! Another student told me recently that she had been “triggered” in a class
on colonialism by the showing of The Ba le of Algiers. In many of these cases offended groups
demand apologies, and promises are made that future enactments of this or that theater piece
will cut out the offensive parts; or, as in the case of “Trannyshack,” the name of the club was
changed.
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/trannyshack_b.png)
As reductive as such responses to aesthetic and academic material have become, so have
definitions of trauma been over-simplified within these contexts. There are complex discourses
on trauma readily available as a consequence of decades of work on memory, political violence
and abuse. This work has offered us multiple theories of the ways in which a charged memory
of pain, abuse, torture or imprisonment can be reignited by situations or associations that cause
long buried memories to flood back into the body with unpredictable results. But all of this
work, by Shoshana Felman Macarena Gomez-Barris, Saidiya Hartman, Cathy Caruth, Ann
Cvetkovich, Marianne Hirsch and others, has been pushed aside in the recent wave of the
politics of the aggrieved.
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/your_trigger_warnings_are_triggering_me_b
d5j2mey.gif)
Claims about being triggered work off literalist notions of emotional pain and cast traumatic
events as barely buried hurt that can easily resurface in relation to any kind of representation or
association that resembles or even merely represents the theme of the original painful
experience. And so, while in the past, we turned to Freud’s mystic writing pad to think of
memory as a palimpsest, burying material under layers of inscription, now we see a memory as
a live wire si ing in the psyche waiting for a spark. Where once we saw traumatic recall as a set
of enigmatic symptoms moving through the body, now people reduce the resurfacing of a
painful memory to the catch all term of “trigger,” imagining that emotional pain is somehow
similar to a pulled muscle –as something that hurts whenever it is deployed, and as an injury
that requires protection.
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/k5715.gif)Fifteen to twenty years ago, books

like Wendy Brown’s States of Injury (1995) and Anna Cheng’s The Melancholy of Race:
Psychoanalysis, Assimilation and Hidden Grief (2001) asked readers to think about how grievances
become grief, how politics comes to demand injury and how a neoliberal rhetoric of individual
pain obscures the violent sources of social inequity. But, newer generations of queers seem only
to have heard part of this story and instead of recognizing that neoliberalism precisely goes to
work by psychologizing political difference, individualizing structural exclusions and
mystifying political change, some recent activists seem to have equated social activism with
descriptive statements about individual harm and psychic pain. Let me be clear – saying that
you feel harmed by another queer person’s use of a reclaimed word like tranny and organizing
against the use of that word is NOT social activism. It is censorship.
In a post-affirmative action society, where even recent histories of political violence like slavery
and lynching are cast as a distant and irrelevant past, all claims to hardship have been cast as
equal; and some students, accustomed to tro ing out stories of painful events in their
childhoods (dead pets/parrots, a bad injury in sports) in college applications and other such
venues, have come to think of themselves as communities of naked, shivering, quaking li le
selves – too vulnerable to take a joke, too damaged to make one. In queer communities, some
people are now commi ed to an “It Gets Be er” version of consciousness-raising within which
suicidal, depressed and bullied young gays and lesbians struggle like emperor penguins in a
blighted arctic landscape to make it through the winter of childhood. With the help of friendly
adults, therapy, queer youth groups and national campaigns, these same youth internalize
narratives of damage that they themselves may or may not have actually experienced. Queer
youth groups in particular install a narrative of trauma and encourage LGBT youth to see
themselves as “endangered” and “precarious” whether or not they actually feel that way,
whether or not coming out as LGB or T actually resulted in abuse! And then, once they “age
out” of their youth groups, those same LGBT youth become hypersensitive to all signs and
evidence of the abuse about which they have learned.
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/lgbt_teens.jpg)
What does it mean when younger people who are benefi ing from several generations now of
queer social activism by people in their 40s and 50s (who in their childhoods had no recourse to
anti-bullying campaigns or social services or multiple representations of other queer people
building lives) feel abused, traumatized, abandoned, misrecognized, beaten, bashed and
damaged? These younger folks, with their gay-straight alliances, their supportive parents and
their new right to marry regularly issue calls for “safe space.” However, as Christina
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/978-0-8223-
5470-3_pr.jpg)
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/safespace.jpg)Hanhardt’s Lambda Literary

award winning book, Safe Space: Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence, shows, the safe
space agenda has worked in tandem with urban initiatives to increase the policing of poor
neighborhoods and the gentrification of others. Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the
Politics of Violence traces the development of LGBT politics in the US from 1965-2005 and
explains how LGBT activism was transformed from a multi-racial coalitional grassroots
movement with strong ties to anti-poverty groups and anti-racism organizations to a
mainstream, anti-violence movement with aspirations for state recognition.
And, as LGBT communities make “safety” into a top priority (and that during an era of
militaristic investment in security regimes) and ground their quest for safety in competitive
narratives about trauma, the fight against aggressive new forms of exploitation, global
capitalism and corrupt political systems falls by the way side.
Is this the way the world ends? When groups that share common cause, utopian dreams and a
joined mission find fault with each other instead of tearing down the banks and the bankers, the
politicians and the parliaments, the university presidents and the CEOs? Instead of realizing, as
Moten and Hearny put it in The Undercommons, that “we owe each other everything,” we enact
punishments on one another and stalk away from projects that should unite us, and huddle in
small groups feeling erotically bonded through our self-righteousness.
I want to call for a time of accountability and specificity: not all LGBT youth are suicidal, not all
LGBT people are subject to violence and bullying, and indeed class and race remain much more
vital factors in accounting for vulnerability to violence, police brutality, social baiting and
reduced access to education and career opportunities. Let’s call an end to the finger snapping
moralism, let’s question contemporary desires for immediately consumable messages of
progress, development and access; let’s all take a hard long look at the privileges that often prop
up public performances of grief and outrage; let’s acknowledge that being queer no longer
automatically means being brutalized and let’s argue for much more situated claims to
marginalization, trauma and violence. Let’s not fiddle while Rome (or Paris) burns, trigger
while the water rises, weep while trash piles up; let’s recognize these internal wars for the
distraction they have become. Once upon a time, the appellation “queer” named an opposition
to identity politics, a commitment to coalition, a vision of alternative worlds. Now it has become
a weak umbrella term for a confederation of identitarian concerns. It is time to move on, to
confuse the enemy, to become illegible, invisible, anonymous (see Preciado’s Bully Bloggers
post on anonymity in relation to the Zapatistas). In the words of José Muñoz, “we have never
been queer.” In the words of a great knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “we are
now no longer the Knights who say Ni, we are now the Knights who say “Ekki-ekki-ekki-ekki-
PTANG. Zoom-Boing, z’nourrwringmm.”
(h ps://bullybloggers.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/i-chzbgr.jpg)
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Tags: feminist humor (h ps://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/tag/feminist-humor/), Halberstam
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COMMENTS 369 Comments

CATEGORIES Current Affairs, Film, Higher Education, Political Rants and Raves, Pop Culture
AUTHOR halberst
369 Responses to “You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal

Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma”
Kat July 5, 2014 at 12:51 pm #

Wow. Thank you!!
REPLY
Robert Borneman July 5, 2014 at 5:34 pm #
Very well thought-out and very well articulated assessment of the culture of umbrage in
which Americans (of all political stripes) currently find themselves. Thank you for this
superb piece of writing.
REPLY
Bink July 6, 2014 at 11:19 am #
Culture of Umbrage–I love that. So apt.
Will She erly July 7, 2014 at 12:17 am #

Just checking. Your rebu al consists of “Is not!” and “Typo!”? You’re right about the
typo, but you may want to read a li le more about neoliberalism. I recommend David
Harvey’s book, which pre y much backs up Halberstam’s argument. For example:
“Neoliberal rhetoric, with its foundational emphasis upon individual freedoms, has the
power to split off libertarianism, identity politics, multi-culturalism, and eventually
narcissistic consumerism from the social forces ranged in pursuit of social justice through
the conquest of state power. It has long proved extremely difficult within the US left, for
example, to forge the collective discipline required for political action to achieve social
justice without offending the desire of political actors for individual freedom and for full
recognition and expression of particular identities. Neoliberalism did not create these
distinctions, but it could easily exploit, if not foment, them.”
REPLY
Martin Knutsen July 7, 2014 at 4:42 am #
Agreed. There is an inflation in terms, when the use of the word trigger no longer refers
to a neural reaction that bypasses the rational mind but just to a bad memory. The sad
element is that it becomes harder to discuss real traumas of all kinds when the scientific
terms become buzzwords. Believe me, you are not traumatized by the use of the word
“tranny”.
REPLY
anamorphotic July 7, 2014 at 10:00 pm #
Apologies if this point was already made before. I’ve definitely been feeling the deja-vu
and irritation with the current movement following the more negative aspects of the
second wave feminist movement – in particular the lesbian community of that era. In that
part of your blog I totally agree and felt quite heartened to see someone writing what I
have been trying to articulate to my friends who have been having the same discussion.
Where I believe you took a left turn was at the description that “not all” LGBT has had
trauma and that the It Gets Be er Movement encourages people to think of themselves as
victims. I think it detracts from your main argument and gets into a ba le of hair
spli ing. Of course people who are LGBT have faced incredible alienation and violence.
Not everyone, yes. But it does put one in the line of fire. For example the Sister of
Perpetual Indulgence and her husband who were beaten at Pink Saturday, an event that
they put on. And no one lifted a finger to help while it was happening. Some even
cheered it. In writing about this, what I am trying to say is that I believe that there is
trauma and the trauma is legitimate. However, (and I think this would strengthen your
argument), it is the job of the trauma survivor to take care of themselves. This does not
mean that they engage in the Sisyphean task of a empting to get their environment to
conform to their perspective of what their personal needs are. DBT, which is a great
therapy tool for trauma survivors, is the work of learning that one can self-regulate their
emotions. That one’s moods and anxieties are ultimately under one’s own control and
not actually thrown off my some external random threat. Sure, something external may
cause a reminder of something in the past that was beyond horrid. It is then the job of the
trauma survivor to figure out what they need to get their own self regulated again.THAT
is wellness. Telling other people what words to use or that they can’t wear certain colors
or shut a door because of a childhood memory is called being a gigantic controlling
douche.
REPLY
Eoin May 13, 2015 at 5:56 pm #
Brilliant points. Expecting the world and its inhabitants to conform to one’s own
(highly personal) trauma response is indeed an exercise in futility. Doing so also
constitutes the very kind of ‘safety behavior’ (in CBT terms) which most likely
maintains said trauma response.
hagsdemesne February 4, 2018 at 8:56 pm #

” it has become a weak umbrella term for a confederation of identitarian concerns. It is
time to move on, to confuse the enemy, to become illegible, invisible, anonymous” . . .
and get out of the classroom and back on the streets
REPLY
Kate July 5, 2014 at 2:33 pm #
How do you connect Hanhardt’s book about the history of neighborhood movements and
the shifting relationship of those movements to the state and police, and activist calls for
“safer space,” calls that ask the group to be accountable to each other, not to outside state
actors? Or do you think they’re all of a piece?
REPLY
bullybloggers July 5, 2014 at 5:59 pm #
Hanhardt’s book, in part, traces the transformation of a multi-racial politics of alliance in
queer communities to an anti-violence agenda. This narrowing of queer politics to issues
of safety and personal security is important to understand in terms of the new discourse
of triggering, harm and trauma.
REPLY
Liberty Mahalakshmi July 6, 2014 at 6:37 am #
This link between safe space and policing is a valid observation. An explanation
might be that third sector funding is increasingly tied to outcomes that measure hate
crime reporting, anti-social behaviour, health problems (STDs, addiction, mental
health, HIV), community safety etc.
Overall, this is a very well argued article and I agree that identity politics has perhaps
travelled too far into the cul de sac of triggered feelings and blame. I have some
sympathy for this point of view because I have seen activists tear each other’s
reputations and self-esteem apart over personal choices and semantics…
However, I agree with the first part of the following statement but not the second,
“saying that you feel harmed by another queer person’s use of a reclaimed word like
tranny and organizing against the use of that word is NOT social activism. It is
censorship.”
Allow me to elaborate. While I feel that organizing against follow activists is a poor
use of energies and counter-productive, I do not see it as censorship…rather, I see it
as the right to reply. Everyone has their own preferences, choices and opinions. If you
call me a tranny, I might call you a bigot, but if you call yourself a tranny I might
assume you are either suffering from internalised phobia OR that you are a defiant,
kick-ass activist who is reclaiming a pejorative as a badge of honour. That would be
my opinion, neither endorsement nor censorship.
For me, compassion is needed here. We activists understand oppression because we

have experienced it up close and personal. Chances are, if you feel triggered than so
does the person who is reclaiming the word…that is why they are reclaiming it! It is
rather like the practice of using a small amount of poison to innoculate oneself against
poisons.
Koko July 7, 2014 at 2:19 pm #

Unfortunately I cannot reply to the comment from Liberty Mahalakshmi, but I
wanted to let them know that I am about to put their last 2 sentences into my
favourite quotes list.
Pratibha Parmar July 5, 2014 at 3:00 pm #

Just brilliant ! Thanks Jack for the much needed illuminating sense & sensibility !
REPLY
altaira5ha on July 5, 2014 at 3:26 pm #
You have a sexy brain. Thanks for writing!
REPLY
Nuncat July 5, 2014 at 3:32 pm #
Thank you for one of the most thoughtful essays on this issue that I have read. As a
professor who teaches a class about science, gender & power, I have struggled to deal with
the sudden emergence of this issue.
REPLY
Maribel Alvarez July 5, 2014 at 3:56 pm #
Thank you!!!!! This is the smartest commentary I have read on activist politics since….. Well,
maybe the ’90s. Reminds me in tone of perplexity of Stuart Hall’s essay on
Thatcherism…”toad in the garden.” And urgent plea for a sensible radicality. your points
are made with such integrity, layering, intelligence and transparency. Pure brilliance. As a
folklorist I teach on the subject of humor (and race, sexuality, stereotypes, etc) in my intro
classes… And it is one of the hardest sections of the entire semester.
REPLY
Terry July 5, 2014 at 3:58 pm #
OH MY GOD THANK YOU
REPLY
Lito Elio Porto July 5, 2014 at 4:05 pm #
Absolutely perfect. Ive been a empting to make the same points, albeit much less
eloquently, since I had use of reason. Very appreciate appreciated.
REPLY
Ja'miey Dale King July 5, 2014 at 4:08 pm #
An excellent, thorough and highly poignant piece.
REPLY
amazondream July 5, 2014 at 4:22 pm #
OMG!! YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN MY PAIN!!!!!!!!!
REPLY
amazondream July 5, 2014 at 4:23 pm #
By that I mean “Thank you for a clear and concise revealing of the new brand of
censorship.
REPLY
Geeti July 5, 2014 at 4:45 pm #
Thank you thank you!!
Your point about “safe spaces” and the tie-in to security made me think… “safe space”
almost never gets tied to critiques of security regimes, or to struggles for/over land.
“Triggering” doesn’t seem to extend beyond the first world. LGBT in the military somehow
doesn’t *literally* trigger.
REPLY
LB July 5, 2014 at 4:49 pm #
I really love this article but realized that I didn’t want to link to it on my Facebook because a
lot of my Facebook friends might be triggered by even just the title suggesting that maybe I
wasn’t taking their triggers seriously.
REPLY
DebraP July 7, 2014 at 12:16 pm #
I had a similar thought, but I posted it with a simple “Interesting read” so as to share it in
a somewhat detached way. Passive aggressive I know, but does the job.
REPLY
Troy July 5, 2014 at 4:54 pm #
This critique needs to be expanded to other realms as well beyond queer and feminist
politics, it seems to have become a universal problem on the left.
REPLY
whatliamsays2013 July 5, 2014 at 5:26 pm #
I think this may be related to a specifically U.S. context. I am British and I don’t find that
most people I encounter on a day to day basis really think like this. Having said that notions
of ‘safety’ and ‘compliance’ are really popular in professional contexts like the media and
education. My grandmother is in her 80’s and although she is very racists it can be quite
refreshing to speak to someone who lived through WW2.
REPLY
Danie Manos July 8, 2014 at 8:46 am #
I am an American who has been living in England for 6 months a ending Uni and I have
seen this kind of rhetoric way more in England than I have back home… I think it’s a
young person thing, or you just have to be around the right people.
REPLY
Tanya October 14, 2015 at 4:10 am #
I go to a UK uni and definitely identify with this. Everytime I tried to do anything in the
LGBT*Q+ society it got such backlash because it triggered someone that in the end I just
gave up. It made my charity work and art shows and education events etc. impossible to
run.
REPLY
Julie Weinshel Tepper July 5, 2014 at 5:35 pm #
Bravo. This so needed to be said in exactly this emphatic and undefensive way. Thank you!
REPLY
Sco Gerard Prinster July 5, 2014 at 6:37 pm #
Could you suggest some basic reading and resources for responding in constructive ways to
the culture of the aggrieved? Thank you!
REPLY
Hugh Haiker July 5, 2014 at 6:45 pm #
I won’t be able to fully capture what this article means to me. I recently quit a doctoral
program at the University of Denver because this exact type of infighting made it impossible
for me to learn there. Scholars supposedly dedicated to social justice seemed to be more
about self-promotion and ego protection. My queerness was rendered irrelevant by my
white male face, and when I called out the pragmatic concerns regarding the overemphasis
of personal narratives, I was accused of employing my privilege to oppress the voices of
others. I feel more sane for reading this. Thank you, deeply.
REPLY
I try to be!
REPLY
narrativeeschatology July 8, 2014 at 11:47 pm #
How do you feel about “shemale”?
REPLY
kjq July 5, 2014 at 7:08 pm #
Thank you for such an articulate analysis of a troubling trend.
REPLY
Assimilationist Tranny July 5, 2014 at 7:16 pm #
Also, Jack, how I’m the world do you get from “trans people don’t like cis folks using to
anti-trans slurs” to “trans people are assimilationist”? It’s almost as if you can only come up
with the most insulting explanation possible, perhaps because you’re a shi y academic with
an ugly soul.
REPLY
You are right, it could be my ugly soul but here’s the thing Assimilationist Tranny – not
all trans people mind the T-Word – that’s what I am trying to say. Some of us like it!! It
was never a medical term and not only a slur, it has a long history as a term of affection
used by trannies for and about trannies and like many other queer slang terms, it does
important work: dyke, queer, fag. I am sorry you found the explanation offered here
offensive but if I hit a nerve, maybe it is worth thinking things through just a li le…
thank you for reading.
REPLY
Tai Miller July 6, 2014 at 1:35 am #
Real safe space should allow for the word tranny because it reflects the very specific
experiences of some of the people in that space. Some people claim that word and it’s
important to them and by pu ing it down you’re triggering them, usually to anger.
KNE July 6, 2014 at 1:42 am #

I’m sympathetic to your general argument, but I don’t think that it the argument
accurately describes the motivations animating the “t-word” controversy as cleanly as
it seems you believe. A be er frame of reference is the “n-word” debates among
african americans, and notions of intergroup vs intragroup usage. From what I hear
from trans folks who’ve expressed opposition to the casual use of the word, I don’t
think personal pain is really the issue as much as collective dignity. (Note: dignity is
not an assimilationist goal.) In any case it’s easy enough for white dudes like me just
to not say the n-word, and it’s easy enough for cis people like me to just not say the T-
word.
quendergeer July 6, 2014 at 2:54 am #

It was certainly impressive how you managed to link queer youth trying to create safe
spaces to the military industrial complex. That’s the sort of theoretical chu pah that
lets you call grass roots resistance to reactionary rhetoric “neo-liberal” and still paint
yourself as a queer outsider resisting assimilation.
Lilee July 6, 2014 at 11:43 am #

Wow, Genderqueer, you say nothing so eloquently. Also, other person, tranny cannot
be in any way equated to nigger. Why are we so afraid of words! It’s not like we’re
using them to oppress. We’re talking about them. How do you talk about something
and not name it? What does that do psychologically? Rhetorically? Transvestites were
not physically enslaved in America and then politically and economically enslaved
for… well, they still are. That word carries with it all of the racism and violence of
those actions. It’s a word used to dehumanize. As a cisfemale bisexual monogamist, I
never used the word tranny as a slur. As soon as I was told by a genderqueer youth
that it was a slur (not because I’d used it, but out of context), I never used it again.
Except in this kind of conversation. In fact, in my job as a rhetoric teacher, I have
corrected students who have used it descriptively, unaware that it is offensive
because they often live in li le bubbles of unawareness that education is supposed to
pop, not reinforce with steel and barbed wire.
S July 6, 2014 at 11:42 am #

Sadly for you, there’s no Lambda award for being rude on the Internet.
REPLY
Spinning For Difficulty July 11, 2014 at 3:02 am #
@quendergeer (no reply bu on) “….It was certainly impressive how you managed to link
queer youth trying to create safe spaces to the military industrial complex. …”
We live in a society today where young boys doodling a cartoon which includes a picture
of a gun in class or shooting their hands like guns in the schoolyard has led to the police
being called out to the school.
Meanwhile the (real world) wars rage on and nobody does anything or even cares.
It sure does suit the military industrial complex to keep everyone distracted by training
them to (a) focus exclusively on themselves in the most self-obsessed way. Me, me, me!
(b) equate group conformity with being good (and thus individuality as bad).
Perhaps you might like to explore the links between the military industrial complex and,
say, Hollywood which – when it isn’t pu ing out movies glorifying violence and military
intervention as the ‘go-to’ solution to all the world’s problems – is pu ing out movies
which normalise and promote narcissistic, egotistical, self entitled, a ention seeking,
morally bankrupt personalities as normal, functional and even desirable character traits.
Go figure.
This victim-culture style of self obsessed me, me, me ‘outrage’ is a million miles from
TRUE MORAL OUTRAGE born of true empathy, compassion and the genuine pursuit of
virtue.
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Sally Ember, Ed.D. July 12, 2014 at 8:31 am #
I love this, Spinning: “Hollywood which – when it isn’t pu ing out movies glorifying
violence and military intervention as the ‘go-to’ solution to all the world’s problems –
is pu ing out movies which normalise and promote narcissistic, egotistical, self
entitled, a ention seeking, morally bankrupt personalities as normal, functional and
even desirable character traits. Go figure.” Thanks.
Trigger Happy July 5, 2014 at 7:18 pm #

This blog triggered me (in a good way!). Thanks for the provocations.
REPLY
bored, unsurprised July 5, 2014 at 8:19 pm #
wow, this is incredibly poorly reasoned, reactionary, and loaded with assumptions. i am a
queer person in my mid-20s who used to really value your work, but the refusal to take
trauma survivors and people with disabilities seriously is really not as radical or edgy as
you think it is. i can understand how a culture of sharing more openly about trauma and its
effects could feel alienating to an older generation who perhaps took experiencing trauma
and abuse for granted, as a normal experience that should just be go en over, not dwelled
upon or talked about in public. but this doesn’t mean that the shift is wrong. i am pleased,
not resentful, when i see younger youth advocating for themselves in ways that i wasn’t able
to. calling it neoliberalism feels like a pre y egregious leap. it’s also pre y wild to assume
that all queer youth now have supportive parents! yes, it’s more common than it was in the
past, but it’s certainly not universal. i’ve known many queer people my age and younger
who have survived abuse (by parents, by police and prisons, by partners) that would be
considered horrific by any metric. uc santa barbara, one of the schools that has been in the
news for students advocating for trigger warnings in courses, was recently the site of a
misogynist mass shooting. are we really saying that that is not legitimate trauma?!
there’s much more i could say but i don’t want to spend my whole day picking apart every
faulty point here. this is boring, irrelevant, and full of shit.
REPLY
Me July 5, 2014 at 9:24 pm #
I think the biggest problem is that people constantly see themselves as victims. If you see
yourself as a victim, then yes, everyone will look like an a acker. It’s okay to feel hurt,
but running away from it by calling something a “trigger” and not dealing with it doesn’t
help anyone at all, least of all oneself.
There is a huge difference from responding with a victim mentality and advocating. It’s
usually pre y obvious to tell the former from the la er when someone opens their mouth
(or types on their computer).
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JustAskingForALi leUnderstanding July 8, 2014 at 9:07 am #
The thing is, though, that triggers can affect trauma survivors whether or not they
“see themselves as victims.” There’s also a big difference between hurt feelings that
you can shake off, and panic symptoms and other effects of PTSD. Let me offer an
example: having slurs thrown at me is simply upse ing to me, but I experience
autonomic and sympathetic nervous system stimulation (raised heart rate, shortness
of breath, and other symptoms of panic a acks) when I smell the cologne my a acker
was wearing, or when I kept seeing him running across campus back before he
graduated. The la er is what triggering is, and the former is not, at least for me.
People landing in the realm of the former might benefit from toughening their skin, as
you would suggest, but those of us who experience triggered panic a acks as a result
of verbal, visual or other sensory stimuli can’t just toughen our skin. Trust me, we
would if we could; but the brain doesn’t work that way. If it did, I might be able to
understand where all this is coming from, but for the moment I just feel like the
debate this feeds into, about triggering and trigger warnings and the new trendy
a itude condemning them, will only hurt people, because of a fundamental
misunderstanding of what a trigger really is.
TL;DR – Triggering is short for ‘triggering a panic a ack or other fight-or-flight

nervous system activity,’ and the now-trendy “i refuse to put trigger warnings on this
or acknowledge the PTSD experience so suck it up” a itude is damaging and gross.
Equally gross is the willful ignorance of people who’ve appropriated the word and
used it to mean that they just feel hurt, angry or sad because of something that was
said or shown to them.
Ma July 5, 2014 at 10:12 pm #

I don’t think the author is failing to take trauma survivors seriously. The overuse of
“triggering” is actually taking the concept away from them. “Triggers” in the
psychological sense aren’t things that make you feel aggrieved or mildly uncomfortable,
which is the way it started being used in social justice spaces.
For fuck’s sake, Iv’e literally seen a post dealing with sexual violence being trigger-
warned for “misogyny” but not “sexual violence”!
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Geeti July 5, 2014 at 10:14 pm #
I think the problem isn’t that trauma is being acknowledged and brought into the open,
but that it’s being assimilated into a neoliberal institution of biomedical care that reduces
complex emotion to diagnostic checklists, and strips grief of its political meaning. I think
that plays a big role in perpetuating the idea that the grief of others ought not to be
touched — an idea that creates isolated lifeworlds, one per person, making the suffering
of queer people outside of richer countries seem too far away and too small.
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xandracoe July 6, 2014 at 4:13 am #
Excellent phrasing: “asssimilated into a neoliberal institution of biomedical care that
reduces complex emotion to diagnostic checklists, and strips grief of its political
meaning.” And yes, I think that goes to the heart of the problem. What we call trauma
used to be called life.
will July 6, 2014 at 5:42 am #

Bored, you should watch the century of the self.
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sirenis July 6, 2014 at 9:17 pm #
Speaking of boring, irrelevant, and full of shit, as a trauma survivor I find the constant
grasping of people for special consideration of their triggers to be venal bullshit.
Real triggers are very seldom as neat and self explanatory as people often claim they are,
and being triggered is often evidence of healing. 2 years into treatment this view would
have had my full sympathy, 10 years out it has my contempt. Crying for protection and
kid glove treatment only slows down the healing process. Trying to score political points
this way is just cheap.
Using your cultivated and curated pain to shut down discussions, especially in an
academic se ing, is reprehensible.
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XH July 7, 2014 at 4:38 pm #
Yes! This! This reply is perfect! Thank you!
Silver H. August 16, 2014 at 3:17 pm #

For the sake of the article, which makes some interesting points, I can understand
“trigger(ing)” in relationship to hyper-individualism in current activism. However, I
think the outrage about the mere notion of trigger warnings is misplaced when put
into proper context.
In reality, a trigger warning functions along the lines of “spoiler alert” (which also has
its share of critics). The term seems closely linked to the Internet and serves to allow a
person to make the decision to engage or not with specific content; it does so because
we live in a world where the Internet lives in our pocket and we tend to mindlessly
scroll through Facebook, Reddit, Twi er etc. at any free moment of the day (not all
but any). There are times we’d prefer to avoid certain content for very practical
reasons: in the 15 minutes before a job interview or business meeting, while we are
procrastinating studying for an important exam, just after a fight with a partner of
loved kne, after a difficult therapy session. The list goes on.
This also analogous to spoiler alerts, because people are very sensitive to having a
movie of tv show they want to see ruined before they have chance to view it. They
can and probably will return to the content after having viewed said tv show or
movie. Trigger warnings do the same thing; they allow someone to decide when the
appropriate time is to engage with certain content.
This has a natural extension into academia where students are expected to employ
critical thought to various material and maintain a certain grade point average while
doing so. Allowing a student to decide what time is best to engage with potentionally
triggering material doesn’t create a culture of victomhood; it simply empowers a
person. Students don’t take one course per term; they take many. Sometimes a
student has lots of obligations and doesn’t feel that confronting triggering material is
appropriate for them at that time. That doesn’t mean that they are running away from
their problems and will never engage with material that triggers them, nor does it
mean they will perpetually avoid any material that triggers.
You can link the term to individualism and neoliberalism, but I don’t think it’s fair to
say it creates a culture of victomhood. I run in social activist circles and don’t hear
people shouting about triggers in person. It came from the Internet and still mainly
occurs on the web. If anything it’s a symptom or expression of Internet culture.
indiyesreally July 7, 2014 at 11:15 pm #

^word
REPLY
Spinning For Difficulty July 11, 2014 at 3:24 am #
While it’s true that some people suffer terrible childhoods of abuse and trauma, it’s
always good to maintain a sense of perspective.
It is the people who make false claims of their own trauma who are really causing harm
(by trivialising the concept of trauma). Calling them out (see video) is a positive thing for
everyone …… *including* genuine victims of trauma.
Twitter induced Shell Shock
“……uc santa barbara, one of the schools that has been in the news for students
advocating for trigger warnings in courses, was recently the site of a misogynist mass
shooting….”
This is a perfect example of how victim culture distorts reality in order to invent or
maintain a ‘threat narrative’.
The guy you refer to (Eliot Rogers) killed more men than women. He stabbed men to
death with his bare hands. And yet he is labelled a ‘misogynist’ by feminists. Feminist
bloggers all over the internet have been caught out referring to him as “That misogynist
guy who killed all those WOMEN” (what about the men he killed?)
That is like labelling a meat eater a ‘vegetarian’, and ignoring the fact that he just won a
hamburger eating contest.
We now live in a society where people want to enhance their own (group’s) victim status
so badly they are willing to distort reality, omit FACTS and barefaced lie to themselves
and everyone else.
This is not healthy or productive.
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Gztlms October 8, 2014 at 12:45 pm #
You missed some of his points. Trauma is real, but pursuing individualized responses
orients us away from collective solutions. He discusses the hard hard work of decades of
thinking and research on trauma and oppression and how those hard fought
understandings are not considered (even with with a counter-argument) but instead
simply ignored. (where’s the respect there?) His argument is not reactionary, but social
and collective and concerned with how individualized ideas of suffering obscure
collective violence and oppression. Here’s a section I’d like to hear your thoughts on:
“books like Wendy Brown’s States of Injury (1995) and Anna Cheng’s The Melancholy of
Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation and Hidden Grief (2001) asked readers to think about
how grievances become grief, how politics comes to demand injury and how a neoliberal
rhetoric of individual pain obscures the violent sources of social inequity. But, newer
generations of queers seem only to have heard part of this story and instead of
recognizing that neoliberalism precisely goes to work by psychologizing political
difference, individualizing structural exclusions and mystifying political change, some
recent activists seem to have equated social activism with descriptive statements about
individual harm and psychic pain.”
REPLY
Just-a-thought July 5, 2014 at 8:21 pm #
Point, to be taken gently so as not to trigger: When the “t* slur” is wri en or spoken it
simply works to let the speaker of the phrase of off the hook of u ering the the word tranny.
Sadly, as reader, I have to fill in what the asterisk after the “t” might be in the context of the
sentence. In this case, the *=ranny. Slurs are linguistic sand traps, sometimes.
REPLY
One of those traumatized whiners July 6, 2014 at 5:47 pm #
i’m assuming everyone here does not understand how PTSD works (doesn’t want to talk
about it by name because clearly, if validity comes from institutions, pu ing these “queer
and trans gentrifying youth” firmly into the DSM is a threat to Jack’s made-up authority
on the subject), but thanks for the meaningless quip of a first sentence
that may be true, re: how to talk about a slur when not a member of the group it does
violence to (hint: AFAB people are not a member of the group this slur does violence to,
despite all of the masculine entitlement that wants to grab up every instance of
victimization — funny how that works, in the context of this garbledymook post — it
can). i am listening to my trans/* sisters on this one, though, and i have been told not to
write it out, in the same way i wouldn’t write out n* because i actually listen to other
people because my head isn’t so firmly lodged up my own ass
REPLY
betafive July 10, 2014 at 3:31 pm #
You know what they say about assumptions…

also, everyone making the “WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE WITH REAL
PTSD” argument are literally doing the equivalent thing to “WE’RE NOT TALKING
ABOUT PEOPLE WHO WERE REALLY RAPED”
that percentage of “fakers” for “a ention” is around 1%, y’all. i realize center disabled
students, friends, nieces, nephews, kids, coworkers, etc, is really difficult, but that doesn’t
mean you get to have a tantrum on the internet and think anyone outside of your queer
theory ala 1994 circlejerk wordpress clique is going to like it
REPLY
Mark Denaci July 5, 2014 at 8:22 pm #
A powerful and thought-provoking post! It gets at issues you have so eloquently raised in
the past about “the speaker’s privilege” in relation to claims of victimhood. While I don’t see
these issues as “either/or”–that is, we don’t necessarily have to ignore questions of personal
pain or safety in order to broaden our focus to more structural issues–I think you have
articulated something that has the potential to provoke a truly necessary dialog within queer
communities.
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Please July 5, 2014 at 8:39 pm #
Sometimes I wonder what things would be like without any men telling us that we women
are ruining feminism with our stupid whining.
REPLY
^ this
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I wonder July 7, 2014 at 1:16 am #
Sometimes I wonder what things would be like if people used well reasoned arguments
to discuss and counter other arguments instead of using claims to identity and
standpoint epistomology to smuggle in facile ad hominems.
REPLY
betafive July 8, 2014 at 12:24 am #
^ this
elle July 10, 2014 at 3:42 am #

“Well reasoned arguments” such as, for example, references to Monty Python
sketches?
jamesworrad July 5, 2014 at 8:55 pm #

Mesmerising essay, though I should point out The Four Yorkshiremen Sketch wasn’t a
Monty Python sketch. Rather, it was wri en by some of the Pythons for an earlier series
called ‘At Last, The 1948 Show’ and was later used by the Pythons on tour.
Despite this extreme insensitivity to my nation’s comedy culture I find it in myself to forgive
you. I hope we can both bloom into be er human beings thanks to this.
Yours,
Major James Worrad (Mrs)
REPLY
thank you for the correction, nudge nudge wink wink…:)
REPLY
Evren July 5, 2014 at 8:58 pm #
I read it right after coming home. It is really great, and long overdue. I am so looking
forward to discussing it in Queer Theory this Fall. xoxo
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leatherargento July 7, 2014 at 12:25 pm #
Unless you’re the professor, I wouldn’t do that. Retaking a course is a bitch when the
whole department sees you as mini-Hitler.
REPLY
Evren July 7, 2014 at 9:14 pm #
Meaning it would be ok to be mini-Hitler as the professor (which I would be by the
virtue of bringing this piece up)?
Alex July 11, 2014 at 11:26 am #

I’m pre y sure that’s why a lot of people become professors.
marcos July 5, 2014 at 9:02 pm #

This generation of activists are in general unworthy heirs to the sacrifices made by those
who came before us, in the civil rights movement, at Compton’s Cafeteria and at Stonewall.
Under much more challenging circumstances, these brave ordinary folks put their lives and
bodies on the line to take a stand against injustice. Stonewall was not a safe space. There
were no trigger warnings. There was plenty of alcohol to be had. Yet when Puerto Rican
trannies and NYU gay boys stood up to the mafia and cops, the neighborhood had their
backs. The anti-oppression/privilege neo-feminist gender studies academics, activists and
advocates would have crumbled up and blown away in the wind. Too many play dates has
created a generation that never had to deal with anyone who they did not like. Thus, anyone
who challenges their politics must be doing so because they hate them personally.
REPLY
Ma July 5, 2014 at 10:27 pm #
I don’t think this romanticizing of the past is accurate. Many people at the Stonewall riots
were homeless. They were the marginalized among the marginalized. They weren’t
braver, they were just more desperate.
REPLY
There was not homeless to speak of, not as we know it now, in NYC in the late 1960s.
Homelessness as we know it did not arise until the early 1980s when Reagan began to
clearcut the safety net. Stonewall and Compton’s era queers fought back when
confronted, took risks, and did not call a time out to process being triggered. ACTUP
era queers took risks and fought back, no safe spaces, no trigger warnings. Freedom is
not free, you have to fight for it and defend it.
ggrkl July 5, 2014 at 11:44 pm #

“The anti-oppression/privilege neo-feminist gender studies academics, activists and
advocates would have crumbled up and blown away in the wind”
Cute, calling people weak for having ideas that offend your delicate sensibilities. Why
can’t they be brave and iconoclastic?
“Too many play dates has created a generation that never had to deal with anyone who
they did not like. Thus, anyone who challenges their politics must be doing so because
they hate them personally.”
Take your whitewashed neoliberal rhetoric back to FAUX-news, please. There are lots of
blatantly oppressed/homeless (!) lgbt people these days, they might not be imprisoned
but it’s ludicrous to call them “unworthy” just because the middle class is large.
REPLY
Many adherents to these narcissistic philosophical frameworks are confrontation
adverse when it comes to confronting actual sources of real oppression yet when it
comes to a acking people who appear to think like them, there are no holds barred.
Snap, snap.
Any criticism of the articles of faith implies that the critic must identify with the worst
opponents of the vulnerable one. Hence, any critical analysis of identity politics, anti-
oppression organizing or trigger warnings means that critic, no ma er how radical, is
tantamount to Fox News. Either one is with you or one is against you.
We plumbed the depths of identity politics and radical feminism 30 years ago and
abandoned them for a reason, they do not resonate with the communities.
The homeless and imprisoned LGBT are not the unworthy ones. The unworthy ones
are the activists, advocates and academics who refuse to take risks, refuse to put their
bodies and lives on the line and yet have no compunctions about a acking their allies
for personal conduct or choice of worse more so than their opponents bad acts
This notion that advocate becomes the communities they advocate for is the height of
narcissism. Without democratic legitimacy of the communities in question, the
advocate is really speaking for themselves or whomever is funding their advocacy
operation, the government or corporate foundations. There are reasons why the
presence of organizers in a community does not mean that the community is
organized.
brynkelly July 5, 2014 at 9:15 pm #

Blargh. A couple points:
1) Affect is not the same as emotion. It is not the same as cognition. It does not respond to
the logic of neoliberalism, or for that ma er, much logic at all. Massumi? Sedgwick? Hello, is
this thing on?
2) Much of your arguments about the professionalization of “safety” and “safer

neighborhoods” were blatantly ripped off from INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence,
and not cited, which in addition to being plagiarism, is pre y racist.
3) #dontlucidturndownforwhat? as the kids say.
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#ludicturn, w/e, you know what i mean
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I don’t know what you mean…at all!

Blargh! A couple more points:
1. censorship has always been bad for feminist and queer communities…hello? Mic
check, Butler, Vance, Lorde.
2. The professionalization of safety and the critique of anti-violence campaigns in place of
multi-coalitional anti-racist politics comes via Christina Hanhardt’s excellent book…
3. #getonwithityourmotherwasahamsteryourfathersmelledofelderberries as the kids say?
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Hrmmmm “free speech” is about the most neoliberal of neoliberal concepts. “Free
speech” is a lot like “free markets”: only the strong survive. I’m gonna (CONTENT
WARNING) hang myself by saying this, but though McKinnon was wrong about a lot
of things, I think she was right about that.

And there are a lot of kinds of censorship out there, but a grassroots movement of
some disabled college kids asking for a simple accommodation is I think about the
least of anyone’s worries about some kind of Maoist cultural crackdown or w/e
people are afraid is gonna happen.

Asking for accommodation is one thing. Stopping the show to act out and
blamethrowing at anyone who does not divine the appropriate term that does not
“trigger” the secret history of the individual is something completely different.

2) No. Stop that. Even if there was plagiarism, it’s not ‘pre y racist’ just because those
plagiarized from are of color.
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Than Atos July 5, 2014 at 10:15 pm #
Thank you from the bo om of my heart for writing this. I often have trouble articulating
these types of concerns myself and frankly in the current political environment on the
progressive side I feel like a villain for having them.
I agree with a lot of the comments here – the current generation of activists right now are in
no way worthy to carry the banner that their forefathers and foremothers fought for. Its
deeply troubling to see what ought to be a united front against institutional oppression
degenerate into the worst sort of factional identity politics and ideological infighting.
Even more troubling is the knee-jerk reaction to excommunicate anyone and everyone for
any perceived transgression against the current orthodoxy. Its an immediate presumption of
bad faith and an impulse to subject everyone straying from the ideological orthodoxy to the
least charitable interpretation possible.
I’d like to echo another reader and ask if you have any suggestions on further reading
regarding the emergence of this authoritarian streak in LGBT activism. I’d be very interested.
Thanks again!
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Than: having been in the romanticized era you write about , here, I have to point out
there were plenty of “factional identity politics and ideological infighting” among
feminists, queer and all racist activists. Lesbians were excluded, marginalized (and told
to “blend in be er”) or in hiding among the leadership of the feminist movement;
women of color were not “invited to the table”; and transexuals were bu s of jokes,
relegated to the next room in “women-only” “safe” spaces, or “didn’t exist” for most of
the white, middle class feminists; no one even talked about AIDS, for way too long.
Believe me when I say this current generation is no worse and, in most ways, much
be er. Don’t write the youngsters off quite yet. We elders weren’t all “worthy” of the
banners, either, but we carried them, nonetheless.
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Han July 5, 2014 at 10:20 pm #
As someone who is a part of this, I do feel myself looking at well-mannered people as
“a ackers” because of this mindset. BUT, on the same hand, MANY LGBT persons have
been abused. while I don’t find language not directed at me as “triggering” (and often find
the word childish), it’s important to realize many LGBT persons were and are abused. At the
very least bullied as children (which CAN leave a lasting, painful mark) and at most, such as
trans women of color, afraid to walk around without being literally a acked (which leads to
a high murder rate of trans persons, especially women, especially women of color). While I
rejoice in the reclaiming of words, many people find them hurtful — I believe a balance
needs to be found between the whining cries of “you’re triggering meeee”, and people who
are actually experiencing flashbacks to abuse.
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Jacqueline Waters July 6, 2014 at 3:32 am #
“(which leads to a high murder rate of trans persons, especially women, especially
women of color)” do you know this to be a fact or is it a political talking point. I just ran
the numbers from the Department of Justice and the murder rates of trans vs non trans
and within a margin of error you have just as much chance of being murdered trans or
not, this is statistically congruent with people of color as well. In other words a woman of
color is just as likely (actually the numbers indicate just a tad bit more so) to be murdered
as a trans woman of color. Taking race out of the equation you will find the same results
compared to the rest of the population…your actually just a tuny fraction LESS likely to
be murdered while trans than any other person in the united states based on population
numbers from the census and the murder rates from the DOJ in 2012.
Alo that begs the question, were these murders BECAUSE these people were trans or was
it that they just HAPPENED to be trans?
If I plan to jump off a building and then smoke a joint and do it, did the marijuana make
me jump because they found THC in my blood during the autopsy? Or maybe, just
maybe they are just using numbers to justify a political agenda?
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Liberty Mahalakshmi July 6, 2014 at 12:16 pm #
Actually, if you are a trans woman of colour you are far more likely to be murdered
or a victim of violent crime, particularly in the Americas. Look at the TDOR website. I
know that Sarah Brown in the UK did the maths a few years ago and posted them on
her ‘Aunty Sarah’ Blog.

How on earth does “being afraid to walk around without being literally a acked” lead to
“a high murder rate of trans persons?” That’s just dumb.
People who experience “flashbacks to abuse” in the course of their day-to-day existence
need to deal with that, not expect to be sheltered and protected from “triggers” by
everyone they encounter.
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Just-a-thought July 5, 2014 at 11:39 pm #
Am I mistaken, it could happen!, or did this article not begin with an analysis of the lack of
humour that plagued second wave feminism? No one punching you down, rather you seem
most desiring of that subject position. I have to ask: what exactly is the appeal of safe spaces,
safe zones, safe words, et al? What affects are found within this bubble of safety?
penned,
a 3rd wave feminist (with a acerbic sense of humor)
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Tai Miller July 6, 2014 at 1:30 am #
A good question. Safe space should be a place where we can share our experiences,
without ridicule, so we can learn from them. Those are political safe spaces. It’s also
important that we feel safe personally, say, in our homes or walking down the street.
That is,we should be safe from direct physical harm. A lot of people don’t have those
basic kinds of safety and we should be worried about it, it’s making us an unsafe and
unkind society. That said, we live in a hard world and we all have bad experiences that
stay with us, some are worse than others, this article isn’t talking about people with real
PTSD say from being in a war, that need safe space. What people who feel triggered want
is a ention. People not ge ing enough a ention is also a big problem in this world. I
hope that explains it. Sometimes we all need safe space, and sometimes we just need to
deal with it.
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Katie July 5, 2014 at 11:44 pm #
These comments are really fascinating. Thanks for writing this — I also didn’t want to post it
to Facebook and then did anyway after noting the irony. It’s a really useful piece of writing,
and captures so much in a very brief set of paragraphs.
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ejones7 July 6, 2014 at 1:40 am #
What does it mean when older people who participate(d) in decades of queer social activism
without recourse to anti-bullying campaigns or social services or multiple representations of
other queer people building lives are angry that younger queer people still feel and are
abused, traumatized, abandoned, misrecognized, beaten, bashed and damaged?
Angry at the claim to an identity, a request for space, an appeal to protection?
We enact punishments on one another and stalk away from projects that should unite us,
and huddle in small groups feeling erotically bonded through our self-righteousness.
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Catherine July 7, 2014 at 8:34 pm #
Well said, ejones7
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caro July 6, 2014 at 1:59 am #
i find this a thoughtful piece that can unfortunately can be easily misconstrued or misread to
justify reactionary ideas. it would be even be er if you could touch upon why/how trigger
warnings and the idea behind safe spaces came about. otherwise, while you speak from
within the leftist queer community, without pu ing up a larger context like that, the ideas in
the post can easily swing rightward.
for instance, let’s be clear: there’s no such thing as a safe space–only a space that seeks to be
a safer one. there is nothing in this world that is free from the economic system that it lives
in. capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, heterosexism, transphobia, national oppression…
they permeate everything, including our own minds. to falsely advertise a space as “safe” is
to actually bring people to harm by leading people to believe that the space can achieve
perfection in a world that is thoroughly harmful and objectifying.
in addition, trigger warnings are still very important for the people who are traumatized by
rape, murder, child abuse, etc. but being triggered in this world is a constant reality. we
should seek to put trigger warnings on things (and specify what the warnings are) without
silencing the need to discuss those painful topics. trigger warnings are what they are–
warnings–so that certain people can avoid the topics for self-preservation or come back later
when they are able to manage their trigger responses be er. it is not an excuse for silencing
important topics. i don’t often like to talk about rape. but i do because rape exists–thrives–in
the atmosphere of silence. we talk about painful topics to seek to abolish the oppression
about it. want to end rape? we have to end patriarchy. that includes discussing its many
aspects and contradictions within a class society.
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will July 6, 2014 at 5:58 am #
true, it took a long careful read to make sure that the article wasn’t being mean.. I think
the point that could be made more obvious from the start is the fact that this triggering
can be used against communities doing good work, as a kind of trolling that divides and
conquers people who are trying to do good work.
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Suey Park July 6, 2014 at 2:56 am #
“Censorship!” argument is used by those who are used to having unrestricted freedom by
the state, erasing slavery/imperialism/colonialism.
In order to combat neoliberalism, it’d be more strategic to address structural inequality that
creates trauma than those who experience it.
Sometimes white academics use “neoliberalism” to obscure the reality of black suffering.
“Point to the structure! I’m not complicit in it!”
REPLY
Lilee July 6, 2014 at 12:04 pm #
I think that you have a point. AT the same time, you missed the point, and may not
experience the reality, that many of those who demand “trigger warnings” for
themselves and for people adjacent to them who may or may not want them have NOT
experienced any trauma. Most of the loudest voices demanding trigger warnings are
white kids in college. The irony of a bunch of kids at UC Santa Barbara, one of the
wealthiest communities in California, one of the most expensive states to live in,
demanding “trigger warnings” to protect them from trauma in their elite school would
be funny if it weren’t so sad.
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What July 6, 2014 at 10:54 pm #
ucsb was literally just the site of a mass shooting
Devin Ens July 6, 2014 at 3:13 am #

Well thought-out analysis, there. Way to make a point.
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Gemma Seymour July 6, 2014 at 3:30 am #
It seems to me that it is something less than productive for a person who is not a trans
woman to presume to instruct trans women on the propriety of semantic constructions
which are used primarily, or even exclusively, to a ack the validity of trans women. Trans
women don’t need CAFAB gender dile antes to tell us what should offend us.
REPLY
Murat July 6, 2014 at 8:37 am #
So … what you’re saying is that only trans women have the right to speak on this topic at
all?
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liamandthebees July 6, 2014 at 12:04 pm #
no, that is not what gemma is saying. she appears to be pointing out the
obnoxiousness of non-trans-women folk (aka jack halberstam) telling trans women
how to feel about the word “tranny,” which is a word that historically and presently
is usually defined by cisgender folk and many times trans masculine people with a
steady infusion of microaggressive and oppressive stereotypes toward trans women.
liamandthebees July 6, 2014 at 11:23 am #
right on, gemma. this exactly.
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And I thought that it was short for transvestite. You presume to not only know what
it best for everyone, you presume to know the mind of people who use a word, and
assume who they are and declare their sameness. You obnoxious trans-womenfolk
are all alike.
not the biologist July 6, 2014 at 1:28 pm #

In response to Lilee: knowing the minds of the users of the word is irrelevant. The
material consequences of ‘tranny’, in marking out the AMAB woman as a class
against whom slurs and thus open discrimination are acceptable and normalised,
who are fundamentally men performing femininity, fall overwhelmingly upon trans
women. Drag queens, crossdressers etc: these groups only rarely and conditionally
suffer the abuse and assaults and restrictions arising from that acceptable-target
category, because they are only rarely and conditionally visible as members of it in
public, and categorisation as men is (by the testimony of members of those groups)
accurate. Feminine AMAB agender/gender-variant people may or may not,
situationally and depending on their presentation, experience those consequences.
Trans men and AFAB people of all kinds do not.
So if there is one group with a substantial portion of members reporting experience of

severe real-world consequences because ‘tranny’ is normalised in the wider culture,
and on the other hand a group primarily composed of those upon whom the
consequences are severely diminished or totally invisible (and a few who do
experience those consequences) clinging to it as a sort of in-group signifier, it’s
obvious to me which a movement which apparently aspires to solidary and unity and
the material wellbeing of its members should prioritise. That this is the opposite of
what’s happening in many Queer spaces – where trans women are hearing ‘shut up,
this is different to the slurs which target us!’ alongside the usual lazy allegations of
assimilationism and censorship – says everything about the value of Queer
‘solidarity’ for us.
Many of us obnoxious trans women are certainly alike in that we’re thoroughly tired
of Queer embracing and defending TERFs, empowering abusers and reconstructing
systems of masculine privilege, while expecting to be immune to the criticisms these
behaviours would warrant if they came from ‘outside’.

What does CAFAB mean please?
REPLY
CAFAB, AMAB, TERF…WTF?
Twi er is destroying our language

um or you could google it. language UNRUINED!

I miss words. Why is “T” even part of LGB? It seems like “T” is a category unto itself
that has nothing to do with lesbians, gays, or bisexuals. Was it a mistake to merge the
movements? I despise the words “erasure” and “invisibility” because I see them
overused to the point of rendering them meaningless. Doesn’t anyone read George
Orwell’s Politics and the English Language anymore?

Are you suggesting there is unity of sentiment amongst trans women on the politics of
trigger warnings, identity politics and anti-oppression/privilege activism and how these
politics are played out in political groups?
REPLY
Deena Lilygren July 7, 2014 at 12:40 pm #
And this is exactly why I am suspicious of any author doing this type of rhetorical
backbends in order to silence a group of people. To bury this point in talk about “trigger
warnings” and pretend this isn’t about one group having a tantrum about being told not
to use the word “tranny” is insulting.
REPLY
Remove the phrase “being told not to use” from Deena’s comment, and I agree 100%.
leatherargento September 14, 2014 at 6:50 pm #

You’re personalizing this. You can’t see past your li le corner of the activist world
because you are triggered by inner compulsions, not by outer actions.

No one’s telling you not to be offended. You’re being told that your offense is your own
problem to deal with.
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Jen October 29, 2015 at 5:41 pm #
Except many trans women have historically defended the use of “tranny.” What
Halberstam is saying here is literally nothing new, and certainly not a function of DAFAB
folks telling DAMAB folks what to say or think. Trans women aren’t a monolith or
hivemind; stop trying to speak for everyone in a large and varied group.
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Ella Gardiner July 6, 2014 at 5:32 am #
what perception. I love being a trannie,
our standards are high.
REPLY
Bullied once, forever entitled.
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sharingempathy July 6, 2014 at 12:01 pm #
Zinger! (And, I mean that in a good way!)
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Mike Keller July 6, 2014 at 9:30 am #
In a joint statement, the People’s Front of Judæa and the Judæn People’s Front
acknowledged that their proposed merger is on hold due to the inability of the two groups
to agree on a name for the new organization. The statement continued that they remain
hopeful.
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terremoto July 7, 2014 at 10:37 am #
Spli er!!!
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dianeperazzo July 6, 2014 at 9:57 am #
Well said! I find the practice of trigger warnings unse ling and makes me further regret the
overprotective culture of fear and paranoia in which we have raised our children.
REPLY
Nebris July 6, 2014 at 10:16 am #
These type of microscopic arguments over language etc [like Facebook’s 70 gender definition
dropdown menu] are a sign of political impotence and the perfect mechanism with which to
perpetuate one’s victimhood while avoiding the real Social Justice ba les, you know, the
ones that involve Money and Power.
REPLY
Yes! I got that from this blog post too!
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Raybaybay July 6, 2014 at 10:20 am #
David Harvey feels triggered by this use of ‘neo-liberal.’
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elffeet July 6, 2014 at 10:51 am #
Oh thank god. You’ve put into words what has been driving me nuts for several years now!
Thank you.
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user July 6, 2014 at 10:57 am #
Reblogged this on The Talking Cock-up Blues and commented:
In a post-affirmative action society, where even recent histories of political violence like
slavery and lynching are cast as a distant and irrelevant past, all claims to hardship have
been cast as equal; and some students, accustomed to tro ing out stories of painful events in
their childhoods (dead pets/parrots, a bad injury in sports) in college applications and other
such venues, have come to think of themselves as communities of naked, shivering, quaking
li le selves – too vulnerable to take a joke, too damaged to make one. In queer communities,
some people are now commi ed to an “It Gets Be er” version of consciousness-raising
within which suicidal, depressed and bullied young gays and lesbians struggle like emperor
penguins in a blighted arctic landscape to make it through the winter of childhood. With the
help of friendly adults, therapy, queer youth groups and national campaigns, these same
youth internalize narratives of damage that they themselves may or may not have actually
experienced. Queer youth groups in particular install a narrative of trauma and encourage
LGBT youth to see themselves as “endangered” and “precarious” whether or not they
actually feel that way, whether or not coming out as LGB or T actually resulted in abuse!
And then, once they “age out” of their youth groups, those same LGBT youth become
hypersensitive to all signs and evidence of the abuse about which they have learned.
REPLY
S July 6, 2014 at 11:59 am #
Thank you for highlighting the emergence of a hierarchy where the most traumatized and
triggered voices are becoming the standard to which all discourse should be normalized.
Being able to characterize other people’s language and identities as “triggering” is a
construction of the speaker’s privilege, and is driven by the belief that one’s own experiences
and beliefs are more valid than those of others.
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To quickly dovetail on this note, the further entrenched we become in this speakerly
insistence on being triggered, traumatized, and violated we mimic the Monty Python
skit: A house? We lived in a room! You’re lucky, we lived in a corridor. Corridor? We
lived in a hole in the ground. We got evicted from our hole in the ground.
Far from normative, myself, this linguistic slide is far from anti-normative. Rather, it’s the
Olympics of agony. Except no one is landing a one foot vault like Kerri Strug in 1996.
REPLY
Cheryl July 6, 2014 at 11:59 am #
Thanks for this wake-up call.
REPLY
“Censorship!” argument is used by those who are used to having unrestricted freedom by
the state, erasing slavery/imperialism/colonialism. <– right on
i'm with you here also on this article being used to defend abusive behavior and that helping
professionals/organizers sharing this are demonstrating their untrustworthiness
(particularly as allies).
REPLY
Allies to whom? A few hundred people steeped in this insular theory? Or allies to whole
communities who, by and large, cast a gimlet eye at those activists, academics and
advocates who spew out this incomprehensible psychobabble jibber jabber on their
behalf ?
REPLY
But pu ing linguistic handcuffs on professors because of the sensitivities of theoretical
injuries is real censorship and real danger.
REPLY
RAGNARÖKKURRÓ (@raggijons) July 7, 2014 at 9:37 pm #
Halberstam’s situated context, geopolitically and academically, provides his perspectives
on the t*word and trigger warnings with a privileged platform.
While I understand that, yes, privileged activists are increasingly overusing *trigger
warnings* and participate in oppression olympics, trauma, violence, discrimination and
oppression are very real phenomena.
The sanctioning of the t*word’s usage also denies the privilege Jack has in growing up
within the U.S., or a place in general where violent forms of cisheteronormativity,
cissexism, heterosexism, misogynies and violence (structural, physical, material,
emotional) are still thriving.
It also ignores how a word like tranny is used to justify violence and discrimination. It
ignores the rankling possibility of tranny being a triggering word, because of its usage
vis-à-vis trauma such as rape or violence.
It’s also easy to be like, if there’s a historical precedent for acceptance, let’s ignore people
today who’s experiences with the terminology have been rampant and violent. Or in
places where trans rights are not existent. Or trans hatred and ignorance still cause
tangible, material, physical consequences for trans people, especially for those without
access to adequate mental & medical healthcare.
It’s also easy to speak with such grandiloquence when a lot of poor uneducated trans
(and queer) folks can’t. When they’ve been kicked out of their homes and taken to the
streets. If and when a history of trauma is their history. When something like survival sex
work is maybe the only viable quick-fix way to avoid starvation. When the word tranny
is used by police, other violent state members, and bigots to justify violence. When you’re
not discussing the intersections of race, citizenship, language, religion, (mental &
physical) disability, education, access to discourse, but glossing over them to emphasize
gender & sexuality.
Capitalism fucks us all over (besides those churning its cogs), but that’s based (at least in
the U.S., but many places globally as well) on former histories of imperialism,
colonialism, slavery, transnational domination&extraction. You ignore how the gender
binary is itself instigated by racist-colonial projects. You ignore your privilege in
currently passing as masc when some of us “trannies” are not afforded or cannot afford
such privileges.
So disappointed in this argument, even though I know where it’s coming from. One
cannot see the struggles of truly marginalized communities from the peak of the ivory
tower.
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caro July 8, 2014 at 9:20 am #
i hear ya loud and clear. see my comment above:
h ps://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/you-are-triggering-me-the-neo-
liberal-rhetoric-of-harm-danger-and-trauma/#comment-8505
JakeD July 14, 2014 at 8:55 pm #

Using your privilege to further egalitarian discourse is not “ignoring” privilege. If we
pathologically reduce one’s speech to where one comes from (as so many Halberstam
critics are doing), we are unable to see where one’s speech can lead to. This critique,
almost like a deep freeze, undermines decolonization. It rehearses, reiterates, and
reproaches the status quo. I’ve yet to hear a critique that substantiates the dangers of
the word tranny as it is co-opted. No one is arguing against the violence of this word
contextually; it fact, greater violence can stem from it’s monolithic interpretation. It
saddens me to see such a conservative trans-community, but glad the conversation
has many who are willing to listen. Along a similar state of affairs: Israel justifying the
genocide of Palestinians based on their “right to self defense”. A tacit example of the
trigger’s necropolitical results.
Tracey Yeadon-Lee July 6, 2014 at 12:19 pm #

Thank you for this – such a thoughtful, welcome and much needed piece!
REPLY
Sadly, I think you are right that abusers will use it to justify their rudeness and insensitivity
but that doesn’t mean the article is rude or insensitive. Abusers often have a knack of
twisting any side of the argument.
REPLY
sirenis July 6, 2014 at 11:49 pm #
As a survivor of DV with PTSD I have to admit this comment is a perfect example of why
this article is necessary. No, someone disagreeing with you is not a form of abuse.
Making that comparison is incredibly disrespectful and ignorant. And appropriating the
language of trauma is not a valid way to silence people you disagree with intellectually.
REPLY
not the biologist July 6, 2014 at 12:24 pm #
Yes, let’s all jump in line and be good li le lockstep soldiers in someone else’s war. God
forbid we question whether the in-group we’re told we’re supposed to identify with is
actually doing things that benefit us, or whether the actions of elements within it materially
harm us just as much as those of the wider culture. More, in fact, when the members of
Queer who a structurally misogynist, masculinist, ciscentric society considers most
acceptable and grants a voice are those who least represent the needs and struggles of the
most marginalised. God forbid we refuse to hand out free passes just because someone drew
a line and put us on the same side as people who a ack us.
If there’s one lesson we delicate (yet dangerous!) Bad Trans People must learn, it is
apparently that we are incapable of accurately identifying the things which do us harm. If
only we’d stop telling you you’re hurting us when you’re hurting us, eh? If only we would
just *understand* that your desire to have an edgy ‘reclaimed’ slur naturally trumps the fact
cis culture treats your use of ‘tranny’ as permission from within Queer to keep trans women
in a non-serious, non-female, acceptable-target category and subject us to all the
consequences of that. Consequences which don’t fall on you, fall on drag queens only
occasionally and gender-variant people conditionally, but which fall on trans women every
single second of every single day. Or is the word of all the trans women who report those
consequences suspect, because we’re not strong, resilient and radical-masculine like you?
I’ll tell you this: if you want these awful, divisive trans people to become wholehearted
members and supporters of Queer, the route to it is right in front of you. Solidarity must be
earned, not demanded. Understand that it means making sacrifices, and that the dominant
male and masculine voices within Queer have given up very li le and gained everything.
‘Tranny’ is a tiny concession, and yet apparently not one which unity would be worth your
making.
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jakeish July 6, 2014 at 1:36 pm #
Yes. Thank you for this comment.
REPLY
Janik July 6, 2014 at 6:28 pm #
First of all, your “every single second of every single day” isn’t at all hyperbolic or too
extreme to be taken seriously. This “all or nothing,” if you’re not for us, you’re against
us,” “Ally is something you EARN, not something you claim” a itude is it helping
anything or anyone? Or is it just fueling rage? Is it just making people feel good about
bad-mouthing the very people who stand in front of grocery stores gathering signatures
on petitions to put LGBTQ issues on ballots? Because I’ve done that, and I’m tired of
people who enjoy the freedom my parents’ generation won for them in marches and
protests telling us to all go fuck ourselves because we cannot grasp the depths of their
pain. Their beloved, precious, self-defining, all-encompassing pain.
REPLY
chiMaxx July 8, 2014 at 8:45 pm #
“…naturally trumps *the fact* cis culture treats your use of ‘tranny’ as permission from
within Queer to keep trans women in a non-serious, non-female, acceptable-target
category and subject us to all the consequences of that.”
*Is* this a fact?
What evidence do you have that “cis culture” gives a rat’s ass what goes on “within
Queer”?
What in the world makes you think that if all your allies stopped using the word
tomorrow “cis culture” would modify its use of the word one iota?
Has marking a word taboo and ge ing allies to stop using it in various ways ever done
anything but intensify the power of that word to be used as a slur by those who use it
with that intent?
REPLY
dentedbluemercedes July 6, 2014 at 12:58 pm #
“Neoliberal” does not mean what you clearly think it means. It most often refers to the
Republican / conservative fetishization of Randian-style free market capitalism, free of social
programs, free of regulations and free of restrictions on the corporate world. While there is a
bit of the free-speech-without-consequence perspective to it (a.k.a. your position, not the
position that you criticize), it is a radicalized and bastardized form of libertarianism.
I’m not personally interested in playing oppression olympics or word police, and believe
that there’s also a divisive undertone in the “tranny” debate.
That said, it’s not an issue without nuance. One person’s sense of being infantilized and
reduced in agency by calls for safe space and focusing on victimhood is another person’s
opportunity to exorcise their very real personal pain and start on a path toward healing. We
are not all at the same stage in our lives.
So while I see value in some of what you’re saying, trauma does indeed exist, and is not
helped by rationalizing the deliberate disrespecting and disregarding of that trauma. And
while that might not have been the intended take-away, the “f– yeah” response certainly
suggests that’s where readers are going.
It’s a balance. And personally, if that balance leans anywhere, I’d rather it lean toward
respect.
REPLY
Excellent comment! Mutual respect, compassion and agency…the way to go!
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If the comments of others in mixed groups that are not blatantly and intentionally
abusive is enough to demolish one’s sense of self simply because they do not validate
one’s self conception sufficiently, then one needs to seek professional help to deal with
that. Nobody is entitled for everyone else to buy their schtick, not in love, not in business,
not in friendship, nowhere. That is not the same thing as bullying by any measure.
REPLY
GoodBadGirl July 6, 2014 at 11:11 pm #
“It’s a balance. And personally, if that balance leans anywhere, I’d rather it lean toward
respect.” **This**! Thank you dentedbluemercedes. It seems to me a mind as dexterous
as Jack Halberstram’s should be capable of making these arguments without demeaning
so many people.
REPLY
Oliver Wendell Holmes July 7, 2014 at 11:32 pm #
Well, this is a tangent, but I feel compelled to point out some differences between neo-
liberalism and libertarianism.
Neo-liberalism is not a GOP ideology; it is the economic ideology of the Democratic Party
(though shared by some GOP members, and with some Dem exceptions). It does, indeed,
advocate free markets (“market liberalization”) but it does so on a different basis from
libertarianism: utilitarian, instead of “procedural justice” or “natural rights.” It uses the
criteria of market failure to decide the appropriate role of government. Libertarianism, on
the other hand, uses a theory of justice to say that the government’s role is not
empirically determined at all. It resists neo-liberal a empts to remedy market failures. It
says that taxation is theft, welfare is exploitation of the rich, etc., on moral grounds.
Neo-liberalism seeks market-based (or “social choice theory”-based) solutions to

problems which libertarians believe should not be solved at all, or deny the existence of
(when that is more convenient). For example, neo-liberalism says that the solution to
global warming is cap-and-trade, whereas libertarianism offers no possibility of solution
and that’s why libertarians are prone to deny that the problem even exists. (Similarly,
many libertarians are natural monopoly denialists.)
I say all this as an opponent of neo-liberalism, which like libertarianism is fundamentally

inhumane in its way of dealing with the working class, and serves as a way of
rationalizing and normalizing poverty and inequality. (Libertarianism says that
inequality is morally just; neo-liberalism dispenses with justice considerations, saying
that inequality is efficient and that efficient economic growth will solve distributional
problems.) I’d like to keep these ideologies straight in order to be er oppose them. They
both stand in the way of the abolition of poverty, but through different means.
Sorry for the tangent. I won’t follow up on this, promise!
REPLY
I appreciate your a empt to clarify this. I think what confuses many people—and
especially people who think in terms of social privilege rather than economic
privilege— is that neoconservatives are a subset of neoliberals. Here’s David Harvey:
“US neoconservatives favour corporate power, private enterprise, and the restoration
of class power. Neoconservatism is therefore entirely consistent with the neoliberal
agenda of elite governance, mistrust of democracy, and the maintenance of market
freedoms. But it veers away from the principles of pure neoliberalism and has
reshaped neoliberal practices in two fundamental respects: first, in its concern for
order as an answer to the chaos of individual interests, and second, in its concern for
an overweening morality as the necessary social glue to keep the body politic secure
in the face of external and internal changes.”
Flufftronix (@flufftronix) July 6, 2014 at 12:59 pm #

This was a breath of fresh air! But “censorship” isn’t the word you’re looking for. That’s
something states do (ie, in your example, banning The Life of Brian), not marginalized
people/movements/etc.
REPLY
Tommi Paalanen July 7, 2014 at 7:03 pm #
I agree that “censorship” is a bit too strong a word here, but as it can be used in “self-
censorship”, it’s meaning is definitely broader than just state censorship.
Also, a term “moralist shaming” could be useful here. It is a way of silencing undesired
views by collectively painting them as immoral, insensitive, misogynous, racist etc.
without proper analysis or discussion.
REPLY
Annie July 6, 2014 at 1:06 pm #
While I agree that the overuse of trigger warnings has led to the over-simplification of
definitions of trauma, critiques of such warnings are often complicit in this simplification,
tending to treat all claims of being triggered as similar instances of harm, whether or not the
instance in question is the name of a nightclub or explicit accounts of rape. Curiously, this
has also resulted in the construction of a different hierarchy of woundedness, in which older
scholar/activists who, we are reminded, “had no recourse to anti-bullying campaigns or
social services or multiple representations of other queer people building lives,” tell younger
“privileged” generations to “get over themselves.” Certainly, there is a problem with
reducing queer politics to arguments over “language, slang, and naming,” but I’d wager that
much of the anger surrounding academic responses to “trigger warnings” has more to do
with the tendency to treat these warnings as if they are always in service of a larger political
goal. As a result, the other side can only respond by pointing out that there trauma is REAL,
which doesn’t really get anyone anywhere. Do we need to have a conversation about these
issues? Absolutely. But this isn’t going to be initiated by older scholars telling younger
students/scholars/activists that they need to laugh and “loosen up” (as much as I may love
Monty Python).
REPLY
Janik July 6, 2014 at 6:38 pm #
yes it is. It has been. We’re having it. You just participated in it.
There is something to be said for “loosening up,” or at least building some resilience. It’s
okay to be uncomfortable, enraged, scared, embarrassed, shocked, and other unpleasant
feelings. It isn’t the responsibility of educators to protect students, especially not adult
students, from opinions, images, thoughts, and words that may produce the above
feelings. Resilience is a LIFE skill.
We have to talk about all of it. It’s good for us! It’s good for me, who generally thinks that
the upcoming millenials are the biggest group of whiners of all time, to hear that I’m an
old, used-up, irrelevant piece of shit! So I can go, “Hey, wait, why do you think that? Am
I? Where am I going wrong here? What am I missing. Hmmm. Let’s think about this.”
And then I read. I talk to people. I form opinions. I learn. I grow.
Why focus on who has the right or the invitation to start the conversation? It’s started. It
will keep going. I, for one, am interested in where it goes.
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Captainlaurie July 6, 2014 at 1:30 pm #
I stopped reading this after I realized that you were incorrectly referring to Brian as Jesus.
Brian wasn’t Jesus, that’s the whole point. His life began with a case of mistaken identity,
because he was born in the manger next to Jesus. And Jesus is actually a very small character
in the film–there’s a depiction of the Sermon on the Mount where Brian sees Judith for the
first time, which leads him to get mixed up in the PFJ. Later, when he’s trying to escape from
some Roman soldiers, he gets up on a platform in a marketplace full of prophets and spouts
out a bunch of ridiculous nonsense to blend in, and some people hear this and start
following Brian around, proclaiming him the messiah. Part of what makes it such awesome
religious satire is the idea that any random dude standing on a raised platform can yell a
bunch of religious-sounding drivel, and people will latch onto that, because most people are
idiots desperate to find a herd to follow.
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halberst July 6, 2014 at 3:07 pm #
Oops. Right. I did not re-watch all of the Life of Brian just bits. I watched all of the Holy
Grail though and cannot wait to work through all the Monty Pythons again!! This makes
everything even funnier. Ta mate!
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IVY July 6, 2014 at 1:47 pm #
Thank you Jack Halberstam for this insightful and needed piece. You are articulating around
a broadly held concern in many activist communities that people are afraid to speak on for
fear of reprisal, censorship or being labeled as supporting oppressive behavior. It’s
extremely encouraging to see the overwhelmingly positive response from so many of the
readers who share similar critiques. Conflating this critique with “being supportive” of
abusive behavior is problematic and what’s needed is honest dialogue and debate around an
issue people are clearly concerned about.
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dmhannah July 6, 2014 at 1:55 pm #
I think that while people engage in activism it is also possible to be inclusive and, in doing
so, forming a “safe space” within activist circles. But I also think the type of identity politics
you were referring to (making struggle a competition) is not the kind I am thinking of that is
beneficial and productive. Additionally, sometimes people need to be called out for being
oppressive, but it shouldn’t ruin their lives – they should be able to address it, move on from
that and continue doing meaningful work because we NEED THEM. But right now I think a
lot of SJ-ers aren’t giving people that chance. Over semantics, a faux-pas, one offensive thing
they said that they apologized for later…but not everyone grew up in the suburbs
surrounded by academics and received a liberal arts education. Humans are going to fuck
up. Let them fuck up, let them recover, and move on.
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Rafi Me July 6, 2014 at 2:25 pm #
Quite refreshing. Thank you. As I always say: “Don’t agonize, organize!”
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Inevitably, some of the comments have already degenerated into ad hominems and divisive
generalisations. Academic memes and acronyms obscure meaning and people flaunt their
credentials while denying others’ entitlement to an opinion.
There is (some) validity in everyone’s opinion here. If you disagree, explain why rather than
denying someone’s right to an opinion.
Please.
There are trans women here who argue that Jack is not allowed to tell us what to think…is
that really what Jack is doing? I don’t think so.
There are many trans women (and trans men and genderqueers and drag queens/kings)
who use the word to describe themselves.
Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if we all agreed to disagree? If we take responsibility for our own
opinions and speech, while allowing others the same freedom and responsibility, the debate
can move on. Otherwise we will continue to recite the same old arguments and counter-
arguments, which is energy-sapping and distracts us from our activism.
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Quince July 6, 2014 at 3:02 pm #
Absolutely! And yet, I have one question: Are parrots not pets, too?
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halberst July 6, 2014 at 3:05 pm #
Finally a question I can answer! Yes, parrots are pets but I just wanted to make a subtle
reference to the “dead parrots” sketch from Monty Python!
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Hmmm ‘pets’? Hurrumph!!!..
I prefer to liberate parrots from their cages… and set those beautiful, colourful beings
free to terrorise the local sparrow population lolz
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Jeson July 6, 2014 at 3:22 pm #
The word ‘trigger’ is a major trigger for me….
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Chris July 6, 2014 at 3:37 pm #
“But, in the 1990s, books on neoliberalism, postmodernism, gender performativity and racial
capital turned the focus away from the wounded self and we found our enemies and, as we
spoke out and observed that neoliberal forms of capitalism were covering over economic
exploitation with language of freedom and liberation, it seemed as if we had given up
wounded selves for new formulations of multitudes, collectivities, collaborations, and
projects less centered upon individuals and their woes.”
This may all be true, and I agree with you on the trigger crybabies, but you’ve got to say,
that didn’t really lead to much, did it? None of those projects actually led to the emergence
of a strong socialist movement or real political change. We just got Clinton, Bush, Blair,
Obama etc.
That’s the problem with the New Left. There’s so much talk about great new ideas and
collectivities and stuff, but no on off campus ever cares.
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bi ersickqueen July 6, 2014 at 4:38 pm #
So since trans feminine folks have already called out the way you used this entire article to
justify why your are allowed to use the t-slur….
I just have to say that making the issue of trigger warnings about “those whiny kids who
don’t know real struggle” instead of analyzing its effectiveness as a way of creating access
for folks in movement work is super ableist. (I mean besides the way you make fun of
people with MCS for ‘holding up’ what I guess is *real activist work*?) The whole idea that
some folks are *actually* triggered but everyone else is just whiny sets up movement
leadership as gatekeepers deciding whose trauma is ‘real enough’ to warrant
accommodation.
Trigger warnings can be seen as part of a movement that collectivizes work towards
increased access in social movements (and I mean we have a long way to go judging by this
article and commenters) rather than pu ing the onus on participants to “manage” their
trauma (which is actually a super neoliberal response….).
So yeah do I get to say that this article triggered me? Cause it did. Someone trying to explain
away someone else’s trauma is gas lighting and can bring up stuff for folks. But I guess I’m
just *too sensitive* and need to stop expecting movements not to re-inscribe the effects of
oppression, right? We wouldn’t want to turn into censors who divide movements over
arbitrary things (like access I guess lol).
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stop it with the reactionary nonsense July 6, 2014 at 5:27 pm #
Jack, are you really going to spew that kind of ableist crap? Your audience is imaginary,
some straw queers you drew up, quite honestly. Sure there are some people who need to
learn the difference between being uncomfortable, emotionally activated, and triggered. And
yes I’m sure that the capital “S” Safe Space “agenda” that you and your reference speak to
here are real things that operate alongside hate crime legislation and things like that to
police and criminalize. But this is not the only way intentional harm reduction works. You
have drawn up your suburban, compulsory-healthy/abled, class privileged, all white queer
audience just to tear it down (which doesn’t make sense considering your past work) and
you know what? It isn’t working. Because your audience isn’t so singular, and it isn’t real.
There are ways of a ending to the way-too-simplistic broadening of the meaning of
“trauma” without throwing people with trauma and triggers into the gu er. Queer and
trans folks are not exempt from trauma or what doctors like to call “mental illness” just
because some queer/trans people have a ton of (racial, classed, gendered, health) privilege,
and you telling us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps is some straight up normal
bullcrap. Get over yourself, just because you might not have struggled with mental health or
might have worked through it doesn’t mean everybody else is making a big deal out of their
own experiences. And just because we, in our communities, ask others to be intentional and
careful with our triggers while we heal does not equate to censorship and is definitely not
“neoliberal.” Taking care of each other is actually hella subversive. It is part of resistance.
And guess what? Queer and trans people don’t only have gendered/sexualized trauma
(surprise!), but every other kind of trauma that is possible because we’re people and we live
in the world. And those traumas create verbal, chemical, and visual triggers.
Go head though, Jack, go ahead delegitimizing people’s emotional trauma and dismissing
the voices of folks who are struggling. Patriarchy and white supremacy clearly need some
help with that.
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Eoin July 6, 2014 at 5:38 pm #
Thank you for this article, Jack. As someone who works with those who have experienced
psychological trauma, I am struck by a glaring irony inherent in the strategies of the
‘aggrieved’ to whom you refer, i.e. a feature shared by just about all trauma-focused
approaches to therapy is the progressive a empt to support clients in dropping safety
behaviors (such as avoidance) which so often develop following a trauma, e.g. avoiding
certain places, people, stimuli which remind one of the original traumatic event. The world
will always be rife with such stimuli, regardless of how many times we argue with someone
not to say something which ‘triggers’ us. Therefore, it is through processing of the trauma
memory, learning to cope with – and alleviate our response to – ‘matched triggers’, as well
as challenging (compassionately) the role of learning processes such as assimilation and
over-accommodation that recovery ensues. Put simply, we need to actively engage in
corrective learning to counter the effects of trauma rather than expect the impossible, i.e. that
we can bicker our way to a world devoid of any possible triggers.
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Lisa Duggan July 7, 2014 at 6:10 pm #
Thanks for this very helpful comment Eoin. It is indeed true that within the therapeutic
model itself, perpetual avoidance of “triggers” is NOT a healing strategy. And also, the
things that “trigger” trauma survivors are never entirely rational or predictable. It could
be a certain flower or a certain smell, rather than a literal representation. We can and
should have debates over the politics of language, but the trigger warning strategy is not
only depoliticizing (imho), but ineffective.
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Eoin July 7, 2014 at 7:46 pm #
Thanks, Lisa. It seems striking to me that – aside from the few people posting here
who have themelves experienced trauma – there is li le discussion of the largely
therapeutic context in which a term such as ‘trigger’ was likely derived. I have to
admit that I’m not as familiar as many here are with theories/frameworks such as
neoliberalism, LGBT-related theory, etc. But it seems worthwhile to consider such
ma ers also with reference to evidence-supported approaches used with those
a empting to recover from the effects of psychological trauma.

No, I was commenting on language. And, how it works. We know what the t* word means.
(I am also one of those folks that has actual PTSD).
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I was also no where near college in 1994. Just so we are all good and clear.
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Audrey July 6, 2014 at 6:32 pm #
Ok. This article really baffled me. I’m going to try to keep my response as brief as possible
here.
1) This article really takes issue with the fact that young queers of today aren’t banded
together on one united front. I’m baffled by this. I mean, yeah, generally we all have the
same goals: economic opportunity, healthcare, safety, etc. But once we move past the
platitudes, how much unity of experience IS there?
I think one of the most important developments in queer politics lately is the recognition of
the fact that queers are NOT a monolith. Like, yes, things have go en be er for queer people
in the past thirty years. But they’ve go en be er to differing degrees for different segments
of the queer community. And for some INEXPLICABLE reason, these divisions follow lines
of cultural inequality: things have go en be er for white queers than they have for POC
queers, things have go en be er for cis queers than they have for trans queers, things have
go en be er for male queers than they have for female queers. etc. So yeah, if you’re a white
upper middle class cisgender gay boy growing up in SF, your queer childhood is probably
pre y good. If you’re a gay trans girl growing up in rural Tennessee, your childhood is
probably not as good. And therefore, one of the CRITICAL things to acknowledge is that
different segments of the queer community have different experiences and different needs.
Look, I’m a gay trans woman. And one of the things you learn fast while being a gay trans
woman is that just because you meet someone else who’s a part of the queer community
doesn’t mean they understand jackshit about your experience. Just because somebody is gay
or bi or pan doesn’t mean that they have any sense of how to interact with a trans woman or
what being a trans woman is like. And you can say that being queer isn’t automatically a
death sentence anymore, but I think a lot of the young trans women I know are going to
have a long, bi er laugh over that one.
TRUST ME. The days of being bullied, of being assaulted, of being molested and raped, of
being a acked are FAR from over. And if you think they are, then you are laughably
disconnected from reality for many queers who are marginalized across multiple domains of
oppression. All you have to do is read our words and hear our stories to appreciate that.
Are there young queers who are cashing out on a culture of victimhood? Yes. Are there
young queers who are passing themselves off as more marginalized then they actually are?
Yeah, definitely! There are always assholes. But the fact is, discounting and disbelieving their
stories sets a precedent for discounting and disbelieving the stories of every young queer
who claims to have been victimized. And that’s a terrifying prospect for a lot of us. For
many of us, our stories are all we have. Our words are all we have. We’ve got no other proof,
so if you choose not to believe us, there’s nothing we can do. So really, it’s a question of risk
and benefit. Is it worth the risk of further isolating the real victims of hatred and violence in
order to construct a culture of disbelief so that we can, what, believe that things really truly
HAVE “go en be er?” That all of our hard work paid off?
2) There’s this angry, egoistic thread running through this article that really rubs me the
wrong way: That previous generations did all the hard work that needed to be done, and
that queer kids nowadays aren’t paying their proper respects. In short: “We solved
everything for you! We wrote books! Why didn’t you read them!?”
But, look. Queer childhoods are almost by their very nature isolated. We’re pre y thin on the
ground, queers, and if you’re growing up in a small town, no ma er WHAT era, it’s really
easy to think that you’re the only one. You keep thinking that for years and years. Most of us
didn’t have older queers in our lives to turn to for guidance. I dunno where you all were at!
San Francisco, I guess. But anyway, queers of this generation mostly found out there were
other queers when we found the internet.
And surprise surprise, once we had the internet, we didn’t look for the books wri en by a
previous generation. We looked for our peers. And we found them, and we connected with
them, and we came up with our own language to describe our experiences, often quite
independent of what queer theorists from years before had theorized. Did we benefit from
the culture-wide changes that had been wrought, unbeknownst to us, before we were born
and while we were babies? Yeah. Did those queer kids with cable TV have maybe a few
more queers on television to identify with? Yeah. But did we have individual older queers in
our lives to thank? A lot of us didn’t.
I think this is why the language of today’s queers is so incomprehensible to older queers. It
wasn’t built with your direct influence. So from the outside, demands for trigger warnings
may seem ludicrous, but from the inside, it’s just the way we accommodate each others’
trauma to the best of our ability. To many of us, the concept of a “trigger warning” just isn’t
a big deal. This language has been in development online for maybe five years. It’s got a lot
of growing left to do. Right now, it’s still somewhat cumbersome. This is why the language
seems clunky and over-sensitive: it’s a language in its infancy. By the time we’ve refined it,
made it efficient and elegant and subtle, there’ll be a whole new generation of queers starting
from scratch all over again.
Should those queer kids of the future be thankful for what we accomplished? Maybe. I’ll just
end this section with a quote from Supernatural: “Kids ain’t supposed to be grateful. They’re
supposed to eat your food and break your heart, ya selfish dick!”
3) This article seems to completely miss the point that language CHANGES MEANING
OVER TIME.
The whole debate over the word “tranny,” for example. Like, I get that at one point, the t-
word may have meant something broadly connected to transvestites, drag queens, and
cross-dressers. But to people under thirty, the t-word means one thing, and one thing only: a
pre-operative or non-operative trans woman, usually naked.
We can try to diagnose when and why this shift happened. Personally, I lay the blame at the
feet of porn companies and the American education system. Porn companies made the t-
word and that OTHER word, “shemale,” into terms for porn featuring trans women. And as
generations of kids, thanks to abstinence-only sex education, turned to internet porn to GET
their sex education, they learned that those two words meant one thing, and one thing only:
a pre-operative or non-operative trans woman, usually naked. It doesn’t really ma er that
the t-word used to have broader application. Because the only place that young people ever
saw those words was on porn sites, those words developed new connotations.
Whether or not you accept the above reasoning as the cause, the fact is that for most people
under thirty, both queer and hetero, both cis and trans, “trans woman” is what those words
mean now. So when twenty-year-old boys say someone “looks like a tranny,” they’re not
talking about drag queens or transvestites or even trans men. They’re making a disparaging
comment about trans girls and trans women.
So with that in mind, does it make sense as to why trans women under thirty might be
somewhat put out by (especially young) queer cis gay men and trans men using these words
freely and as self-identifiers? Because now that the words have come to mean “just trans
women, usually pre-op, usually naked” can you understand why it doesn’t make sense for
people who aren’t trans women to try to “reclaim” them? And how feigning an ignorance of
this change might make you an asshole?
In short: PLOT TWIST! You can’t just declare a word like the t-word “reclaimed” and wipe
your hands of the whole discussion, because words aren’t static! Their meanings change
over time! Ahh! I can’t believe I have to explain this to you! Gahh!
4) A lot of this article seems to boil down to this: “queer kids these days are self-obsessed
and melodramatic! They take themselves too seriously and don’t have a sense of
perspective!”
I would argue this has li le to do with kids being QUEER, but has EVERYTHING to do with
kids being YOUNG. You’re talking about a group of people who are mostly in our early
twenties. It’s the nature of one’s early twenties to be self-obsessed and melodramatic. THIS is
the age when we are desperately trying to figure out who we are. For people in their early
twenties, ‘melodromatic” and “a bit self-obsessed’ are standard operating procedure. Hell,
think of On the Road. Generation after generation of young adults have gone through this
phase, and we’ve got the literature to prove it! The ONLY reason it seems worse now than
ever before is that all of our diary entries are online.
I mean, be honest: how many people in their forties and fifties today kept angst-ridden, self-
obsessed journals in their late teens and early twenties? And how many people ever had
access to those entries? Maybe you did readings of them with all your radical friends. All
twenty of them. The fact is that now, thanks to the internet, our diaries can be read by
thousands of people, so they take up more cultural space. But that’s not the fault of US for
being more melodramatic and self-obsessed than previous generations, it’s just growing
pains of a civilization adapting to the digital age.
Just some thoughts.
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Aaron July 7, 2014 at 10:31 pm #
just wanted to say this is a great comment
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Incorrect! I’m a person under thirty, and ‘tranny’ sure doesn’t mean that to me.
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Audrey: Well-done! I completely agree with you. You made my heart sing and give me
more hope for your generation than I’ve had in a while. Cogent, articulate, insightful,
intelligent, meaningful, accurate and ingenious! I don’t mean to sound matronizing, but I
am almost 60.
So, the older generation isn’t hopeless, either. THANK YOU!
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Todd July 6, 2014 at 7:08 pm #
@ “OoTTW”: Do you have any data on how many trans/bi/queer/gay youth have an actual
diagnosis of PTSD?
Simply claiming to have it isn’t, obviously, the same as being diagnosed with it.
Unless there is solid data on the subject, asserting the widespread presence of PTSD among
the above groups cheapens the diagnosis and certainly weakens your argument. It’s one
thing to have lived through difficulty, and I do not disparage such a challenge, but it’s
entirely another to have PTSD. Facts ma er here.
( I recognize that many, if not most, will not have access to the necessary facilities to get a
diagnosis, but that lack of access is something you and I likely agree needs to change.
Healthcare should be a civil right.)
Tranny, fag, queer are all words that marginalized communities have reclaimed as theirs in
the face of oppression. This is a simple historical observation, amply demonstrated by
groups from ACT-UP to Dykes on Bikes to Queer Nation. Taking tranny away from self-
identified trannies is not only counterproductive, but actively assists those who benefit from
a fractious and splintered opposition. My ideological and cultural opponents are Christian
theocrats, neoliberal politicians and corporations, heteronormativity and AIDS-phobia. I
certainly do not count you among those enemies, and hopefully, you don’t see me, for all my
disagreement with you, among yours.
This debate reminds me of the very early days of the AIDS epidemic. Certain people, mostly
gay white men working for establishment corporations, had health insurance, while others,
mostly people of color, the poor, and the young, did not. Those who had coverage were
called “golden life boaters,” and they were accused of being privileged and insensitive to the
plight of those without coverage. It was not a productive debate: there needed to be action
on developing treatments, establishing support networks, and forcing government action.
Eventually, people here in San Francisco developed a model of support that became as
inclusive as possible. Shanti (an organization providing practical and emotional support for
PWAs, their family, partners, and loved ones) trainings constantly emphasized the need to
recognize privilege and to combat it.
Of course, such efforts were imperfect but by forwarding compassion in place of

controversy, San Franciscans dealing with a horrifying epidemic were able to achieve
enough political unity to develop effective institutions in response to the deadly crisis.
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narrativeeschatology July 8, 2014 at 11:49 pm #
“Trannies” are appropriating PTSD from the disabled.
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Space Crip July 6, 2014 at 7:13 pm #
“People with various kinds of fatigue, easily activated allergies, poorly managed trauma
were constantly holding up proceedings to shout in loud voices about how bad they felt
because someone had said, smoked, or sprayed something near them that had fouled up
their breathing room.”
I think this sentence in particular demonstrates this post’s complete failure to understand
the concepts of accessibility or self-advocacy. Because, wow, isn’t it just awful when disabled
people (whether that be people with multiple chemical sensitivities or mental disabilities)
advocate for an environment that is just as accessible to them as it is to non-disabled people?
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Catherine July 7, 2014 at 8:44 pm #
I so agree with you on this point. Space Crip.
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No. ‘Feeling triggered’ is not a mental disability. That sort of disableist nonsense
trivializes actual mental disabilities. Don’t do that.
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Space Crip July 8, 2014 at 1:02 am #
“Feeling triggered” is not a mental disability, but trigger and content warnings were
developed at the grassroots level to accommodate people with “actual” mental or
psychiatric disabilities relating to trauma or compulsive or self-harming behavior.
Many years ago, before trigger warnings became the source of academics’ ire, small
online communities (like LiveJournal) used trigger warnings as a courtesy to friends
in their circle when discussing things like rape or disordered eating or cu ing. This
gave people with PTSD, eating disorders, or who self-harmed the option of looking at
the content being warned for or not. Trigger warnings are still used in many
communities for those purposes.

So what? Because a handful of marginalized LiveJournal users fostered and enabled
the perpetuation of a culture of moral indignation and victimhood, we’re all obliged
to participate?
I’m triggered by trigger warnings. They give me flashbacks to the traumatic abuse
I’ve suffered at the hands of entitled narcissists. Where’s my fucking safe space?

@Space Crip:
Remember the joke about the girl who dug with such glee and abandon through a
pile of manure that happened to be delivered the morning of her birthday. “There
must be a horse in there somewhere!” she shouted.
If people want to enlist a small circle of friends or of the similarly afflicted to do this
with them, then bully for them. If they want to make their home a place where they
can remove their emotional armor, more power to them.
But when they step outside the circle or outside the home and try to impose these
behavioral and linguistic rules on the wider community, when they a ack allies who
don’t share the private idiosyncratic vocabulary of sensitivities, connotations, and
definitional associations that they have cultivated with their closed circle, then they
become censorious whiners.
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just
what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different
things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
And, of course, Trigger is a horse.

Also, just stop using the tired old “this demonstrates a complete failure to understand…”
line. It comes off both condescending and dumb.
Judith obviously understands the concepts of “accessibility” and “self-advocacy;” he just

disagrees with you about effect them.
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syrens July 6, 2014 at 8:43 pm #
Reblogged this on syrens and commented:
This piece got my a ention because it was about Trigger Warnings. I’m… ambivalent about
trigger warnings. On the one hand, I have definitely wound up with tunnel vision and my
shoulders up around my ears and my breath coming too fast and too short, due to subject
ma er that freaks me the fuck out. I definitely would have appreciated a heads-up so that I’d
know what I was ge ing myself into. But I also… have some side-eye for “I’m Feeling
Triggered” when, rather than meaning “I am on the edge of a panic a ack” it means “I don’t
like feeling uncomfortable, and this subject is uncomfortable for me” (particularly when the
uncomfortable is due to things like “I feel guilty about my privilege” just as a for-instance).
It’s easy to abuse, is what I’m ge ing at. And this particular post talks about how the
“trauma olympics” isn’t a good way to organize (or Organize) ourselves. At the same time, I
do give this post a bit of a side-eye about (for example) words that are ge ing reclaimed by
people who were never hurt by them in the first place. The feel I get from this piece – which,
given that I’m two drinks in at this point, may not be accurate – is that, because we (as
queers) aren’t necessarily ge ing beaten up, raped straight, thrown in jail, or otherwise
brutalized *because of our sexual orientations*, our desire to make our space Safe is… not
legit, on some level. Like having a GSA in your school means you can’t think about how
you’re X perecentage less likely to get hired for a job if you’re out, or that you can’t be a
queer white-collar government worker *and* an incest survivor (for example), or something.
I’m hoping I’m missing something on this – that the author is really saying something like
“Hey there, white, cis queers, maybe *don’t* be all “I’m So Opressed” just because you’re
queer when other people in your (or “your”?) communities are *actually* still ge ing
harassed by Concerned Citizens (sometimes that means cops, sometimes that means
gentrifiers, and so-on) because they’re brown/sexworking/trans/all-of-the-above/etc.
I don’t know. Anyway. Give it a read and see what you think.
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Amy Dentata July 6, 2014 at 9:20 pm #
Cherry-picking extreme, rare examples to dismiss a much broader social awakening that has
has a net benefit for survivors of trauma. Dismissing the real danger that still exists for queer
people whether or not they faced danger upon initially coming out.
“These younger folks, with their gay-straight alliances, their supportive parents and their
new right to marry regularly issue calls for ‘safe space.'”
Not all young kids have GSAs or supportive parents. This is a caricaturization of an entire
generation, of which a large number have suffered abuse, because abuse is very, very
common.
Going from “These hardship competitions, but without the humor, are set pieces among the
triggered generation” to:
“What does it mean when younger people who are benefi ing from several generations now
of queer social activism by people in their 40s and 50s … These younger folks, with their
gay-straight alliances, their supportive parents and their new right to marry”
So. Hardship competitions, eh?
May as well have wri en “kids these days have it perfect! Back in my day we didn’t even
have marriage!” The author is engaging in the same “suffering competition” that the article
accuses others of performing, except on the basis of age.
“let’s acknowledge that being queer no longer automatically means being brutalized”
Within very small bubbles of the world. Often, wealthy white bubbles. These bubbles are the
exception, not the norm. The author apparently has been living in one of those bubbles for so
long he’s forgo en that violence still exists outside of these bubbles—and certainly still
exists within as well.
This article is an insipid “omg trigger warnings, what drama queens” rant dressed up as
something with substance. Next time remember to actually bring the substance.
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alejo July 6, 2014 at 9:31 pm #
Umm, OK. There’s one or two kernels of usefulness here: I appreciate critiques of the
tendency in some political circles to over-psychologize oppression at the expense of
critiquing systems of oppression that can be way outside of personally experienced feelings
of empowerment or hurt. That is a thing that happens, and I agree it’s often linked to
neoliberalism’s emphasis of the individual and rejection of actual structural modes of
understanding what happens in the world. I also think narratives that dramatize and assign
wounded affect to queer youth happen and are at times very much a part of a basically
conservative politics.
But the rest of this post and many of the comments are just so grossly dismissive of younger
queer folks, and of the marginalization of trans women in and outside of activist / queer /
radical circles, and of the notion that there’s political and ethical good to be found in
interpersonal decency and thoughtfulness. I think you can critique the over-emphasis on
personal emotion and the pained romanticization of queer youth without all this kinda
macho celebration of not giving a fuck about other people, y’know?
Like, I’ve seen, on occasion, people ask for or demand trigger warnings, or decry their
absence, in ways I’ve found to be dishonest and self-serving. This, though, has in my
experience been rare and mostly been from folks who were already pre y privileged and
entitled – and this description does not include the majority of queer / LGBT youth. Queer
youth aren’t quivering pain-receptacles, but neither are we exclusively problem-free kids
who face zero anti-queer violence or systemic discrimination and just mindlessly freeload off
the accomplishments of our predecessors on our happy road to assimilation or comfortable
bourgeois boheme self-satisfaction.
I legitimately don’t understand the widespread backlash against the act of le ing people
know when potentially triggering content is in the pipeline. Like, during my undergrad I
went to a school that was mostly non-white and largely black, in a mostly black city, and I
took a class on the political history of photography in the US, and the professor – who was
no social justice warrior, just a pre y run-of-the-mill moderate-liberal art historian – thought
it would be reasonable and kind to give folks a warning about disturbing content a couple of
weeks before we did segments on how the KKK distributed photos of lynched people (who
were mostly black men and sometimes black women, Jews, and white anti-segregationists)
and on how the photos of the dead Emme Till helped expose the horrific violence of white
supremacy. Was he doing this because he was cowed by the neoliberal politically correct
orthodoxy? No – he warned us about such content because he knew he was teaching a class
to many black students who may have been subject to traumatizing racial violence
themselves, and students who were likely the friends and family of young men who look a
lot like Till. He was being thoughtful and le ing people know that there was some explicit
imagery of terrible racialized violence coming up, and folks should prepare themselves for
such content because maybe they’d experienced something like it, or feared they or their
loved ones might. That is not censorship and it’s not necessarily pandering to a neoliberal
trauma-centering subject. Neither is asking for that kind of decency. It’s being kind to the
humans around you, and trying to create a culture of thoughtfulness about the reality of
oppression in people’s lives and the fact that such oppression can be especially upse ing or
traumatizing.
Not all trans women or trans-feminine people have had the word ‘tranny’ used against them
in violent or threatening or dehumanizing contexts. Plenty have. Not all trans women or
trans-feminine folks object to the term because it holds connotations of trans misogynistic
violence. Plenty do. For those reasons, it’s really kind of shi y for folks who are not trans
women or trans-feminine to rah-rah ‘tranny’ identity when they’re not so likely to have it be
used harmfully against them or people with similar identities or bodies to theirs. Misogyny
happens, and there’re some expressions of misogyny that hit trans women and trans-
feminine people especially hard, and being thoughtful about that type of sexism should be a
pre y basic part of feminist behavior.
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If the stakes for sharing something are so high as to render someone “untrustworthy”
simply by posting an article, then the stakes of your conversation are too high. Of course
trigger warnings are important. Of course trauma and abuse are real. And yes, people who
repost just to rectify the “trauma” of having felt awkward in a conversation — “see! I was
right! you just need to toughen up a bit!!” are missing the point, which is that any
conversation that is worth having ma ers more than any temporary moment of
awkwardness. Likewise, the conversation, the alliance, the support system, the context — it
all needs to be resilient and able to withstand these moments as well.
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That’s not making an apology for bigotry — it’s suggesting that there should be room for
people to be able to get things wrong without driving them out of the conversation.
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SHN July 6, 2014 at 9:56 pm #
I’ve only discovered this blog now when I saw someone on my twi er timeline link to this
superb piece.
As a leftwing feminist from an earlier era (I’m 54) who was very active in feminist
campaigns throughout the late 70s, 80s & 90s on issues like domestic violence & gender
discrimination – I have grown u erly exhausted and disgusted with the total deterioration
of feminist discourse into stuff like this “triggering” crap.
I especially appreciate your citation of a film like Life of Brian. I’ve often said the same thing
of that film or films like Blazing Saddles – they NEVER could be made today. Yet I love those
films and make no apologies for enjoying them.
I detest the infantilism of this new discourse online – esp among a certain segment of twi er
feminists – with whom it is impossible to have any kind of conversation. They use jargon
and slang that is u erly impenetrable.
They are totally fixated on the self — on bullying and exclusion.
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TJ July 8, 2014 at 9:07 am #
All you alleged ‘adults’ in your 40s and 50s ge ing together to have this great big circle
jerk about how whiny and entitled the kids today are, and how much tougher things
were in your day, and how you had to walk twelve million miles uphill in the snow to
deliver newspapers or what the fuck ever… you realise that we’re trying to solve
problems that YOU spoiled fuckers caused, right?
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“you realise that we’re trying to solve problems that YOU spoiled fuckers caused”
Ah, generational warfare. The identitarian response would be to accuse you of
ageism, but that’s because identitarians, by definition, can’t see the real problem. The
“fuckers” are, and always have been, the .01% of the population that controls the rest.
The most encouraging thing I see in the new generation is a growing support for
socialism.
lago July 7, 2014 at 12:36 am #

framing vocalization about trauma triggers as a neoliberal affectation is extremely
condescending and harmful. equating trauma symptoms with offense is inaccurate,
misogynistic, and the oldest trick in the book. it’s disgusting as fuck. you seem unable to
handle the fact that a few people — seriously a few, less than 10% of americans have PTSD
(and i’m sure than less than 5% of them know what their triggers are) — are actually
speaking out in self-defense about the lack of sensitivity towards survivors that our culture
exhibits. why is that? because academia can no longer be a giant irresponsible boys’ club?
because *oh my god* abusers actually have to start recognizing that their actions have
consequences and that the people they harm will speak out? fuck this crappy “thinkpiece.” i
care about survivors’ ability to function in a deeply misogynistic and violent world so much
more than i care about comedy. this is some MRA bullshit in disguise.
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Rob July 7, 2014 at 2:27 am #
First off, a very interesting read. Thank you for raising these issues – this piece has provoked
a fair bit of discussion in my community.
I’d be interested in your take on Bernice Johnson Reagon’s piece Coalition Politics: Turning
the Century. She addressed a number of the themes you’re dealing with here, and I think her
analysis might be worth looking at. More specifically, I think she strikes a balance between
a ending to the needs of a coalition and the needs of the individuals who comprise it that’s
lacking in this writing. Building a coalition is hard, jarring work – you’re trying to meld
together the needs of disparate, often conflicting groups. But, at the same time, you have to
be careful to a end to the people who are the movement. There’s a tendency in privileging
the coalition over the individuals to erase the same people who always get erased. Sylvia
Rivera comes to mind.
That’s my main concern here. While you’ve done an excellent job highlighting how people
can be fragile, to the point of being narcissistic, the framing seems to imply that anyone who
gets wounded by their coalition partners should just shut up. That makes me uneasy.
It might also be worth taking a look at Ngọc Loan Trần’s piece, Calling IN: A Less
Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable.
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Jen Hollis July 7, 2014 at 2:47 am #
‘Weepy, white feminism,’ huh? Let’s ‘unpack’ that–as you grad school types are fond of
saying in your overlong screeds. (Let’s also thoughtfully not ‘problematize’ it, as
‘problematize’ is not a gahtdamned word.)
So, weepy and white…
First, I don’t recall ever actually seeing feminist icons of that era like Gloria Steinem, Be y
Friedan or Naomi Wolf sniffling, tearing up, or ge ing otherwise lacrimosa–but let us set
aside this absolute lack of weeping; really, what I think you might have been going for was
‘aggressive,’ ‘ball busting’, and ‘humourless’…wait…no…I think you hit the ‘women aren’t
funny’ stereotype. Scratch that. Good work.
Still, nice deployment of the term ‘weepy,’ (i.e. weak and overly emotional) to broadly
delegitimise the feminist critique. I think between us we can agree that feminism in that era
was probably just on its period. Or perhaps it had its panties in a bunch.
Second, I might just mention the technicality that white racists would not consider any of the
abovementioned feminist superstars white. In fact, all three of these women belong to an
ethnic group which the white racism of the 20th century in the US and Europe labeled sub-
human, discriminated against, and ultimately tried to exterminate through a genocidal
campaign. That said, this trivial fact is not meant to infringe on the very important agency of
non-white (or progressive-white) racists to decide for themselves, arbitrarily and as
individuals, who can be labeled white and subsequently negated through that label.
I think we can all agree it’s more fun to do things this way. Or we’re just super
lazy….probably it’s that.
Finally, using sexist ad hominem to dismiss, in a single broad stroke, all ‘white'(ish?),
women who took their experience and thoughts seriously, a bit conventional and expected,
no?
I think, as a man, using your natural strength, humour and cleverness, you could have come
up with something funnier. I say this only because we all know men are funny and strong,
as are the people they decide are also funny and strong, according to their whims. Not that
men have whims, of course, as they are also super rational.
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alejo July 7, 2014 at 12:19 pm #
Jen,
Terms like “white woman tears” were, in my understanding, originally proliferated in

activist / feminist / dyke communities by woman of color who were frustrated by how
white feminists and white lesbians would deploy shows of woundedness and sadness in
a way that utilized racist tropes about people of color being mean or aggressive, or that
treated assertive behavior by women of color as ‘bad’ while celebrating that kind of
behavior from white women, or that let white people turn conversations about racism
into white guilt and navel-gazing. That’s a thing that happened and happens and it
makes sense that people subject to that kind of racist redirection would come up with a
short-hand way of referencing it.
I think Halberstam was writing with that history in mind, especially since a lot of their
argument here seem to be that there’s currently a harmful and significant tendency to
prioritize the feelings of the privileged over structural analysis and activism for systemic
change. I think there’s a grain of truth to this claim, though I think this piece over-
generalizes and over-states the problem and has a lot of things just wrong. But displays
of sadness and hurt can certainly be used to deflect critique and support oppression, and
this has been true for a very long time – hence the development of terms like “white lady
tears” decades ago. See also: feminists who write about manipulative “man-tears” and
the like.
That said, it’s clear that not everyone knows about that history, and I absolutely think
deploying that rhetoric as a white, well-off, famous academic of masculine gender has a
*way* different tone. There can be good in white activists arguing against the white
whine, but not so much without more subtlety than Halberstam offers here. I’m aware of
some of the history of “white woman tears” and I still found its use in this piece to be
kinda sexist and dismissive while cleverly referencing anti-racist and activist discourses
just enough to provide a smug alibi (allybi?). I can well imagine many folks not familiar
with the term seeing Halberstam’s use as just plain misogynistic.
So, yeah. Snark as a style of writing, and the self-satisfaction and lack of subtlety that
generally come with it, often kinda fucking suck. It’s weird and disappointing to see an
academic who wrote things that were significant to me when I was younger make acting
like this now.
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just somebody July 7, 2014 at 6:32 am #
okay, i never went to a fancy post-secondary school or took a course on all this very heady
stuff – so i don’t know if i’m truly qualified to comment here. I have seen the type of
discourse you refer to, quite rampantly, especially in (admi edly predominately caucasian)
“lgbt” groups, as well as online, but have never understood why. So maybe i’m not qualified
to speak to this issue, but i am a person who has been forced into sex-work, extended
homelessness, raped nine times, shot, chased down and beaten with a bicycle chain, laughed
at in the er when they realized i was trans, assaulted by police just because, had to fight
almost everyday in later elementary grades and junior high, been called nerd, weirdo,
faggot, sissy, bitch, nigger, “ewww that’s a man”, etc. on countless occasions, had bo les
tossed at me, and kicked out of my mother’s home for being a “sick”, “deceptive”,
“homosexual transvestite”. I guess y’all’s term for this sort of stuff is “trauma”?
Here in dc (home of the redskins), we’re often called “trannies” or “queens” as a ma er of

fact rather than insult. But i did not realize “tranny” was an offensive term until i read some
person on the internet’s opinion who lives all the way on the other side of the country. I still
have never met a person who is offended by the word “tranny” in real life!
Been through alot perhaps, but i used to share a camp with vietnam and gulf war vets – and
that li le crap i’ve been through is nothing compared to what they’ve seen, been through,
and put others through. I’m not trying to beli le anyone else’s experiences, and do believe
that people should be far more compassionate and considerate than they are – but it seems
(speaking only from my experience) that loving my “enemies”, turning the other cheek,
being slow to anger, and exhibiting compassion and consideration, kindness and general
respect for others AND where they might be coming from -has go en those others as well as
myself alot further in terms of cooperations, relationships and personal evolutions – than
nit-picking over terms which are themselves arbitrary, and necessarily in constant evolution.
And this seems to extend to all aspects of life, not just “lgbt” issues, even in today’s over-
sensitized amerika… I thought my generation was supposed to be the “ME generation”, but
these younguns sure seem to wanna take the cake.
Please try to exercise your own inner strength just a li le, every once in a while – and maybe
try to be a li le less self-centered, perhaps even forgiving, every now and again. You’d be
surprised at the results!
Oh yes, and i also thought the article was pre y darn good (and could actually read and
understand it too lol).
p.s. the same mother who once called me “sick” and “deceiver” and “homosexual” with
soooo much disgust – is now my best friend and i hers
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Wes July 8, 2014 at 1:47 pm #
you are absolutely qualified to comment here and your perspective is insightful and your
shimmering resilience shines bright like a diamond!
this is exactly the kind of perspective that i feel like jack is advocating for – compassion, a
sense of humor, forgiveness, etc.
thank you for your comment. it made reading all that other mess worth it.
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Portia July 7, 2014 at 8:33 am #
I love this article. l have long felt the left and the liberal generally tend to fragment
unproductively into injury-privilege, psychobabble, semantic fine points and narrow group
identifications. Whereas if we look at the big picture, the enemy is a rapacious capitalist
economy every time, & every kind of oppression flows from it & ought to give us common
cause.
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repatri July 7, 2014 at 9:39 am #
The problem with radical/queer*/trans*/activist circles is that they’re just that – circles. When
queer is reduced to an identity rather than a positionality within a broader struggle it just
becomes an isolated subculture which has as it’s foundation policing and a ack rather than
solidarity and an open orientation towards STRUGGLE. Over the past 20 years the queer
circles i’m involved with have become more introverted, and have become more and more
specialized in language (especially psychiatric language, something that deserves a much
longer look at) — to the point where I wonder how a lot of peeps function in the ‘outside
world’, at work etc. Many of my friends have confided in me that they haven’t felt
comfortable talking about certain topics with each other out of fear that it will result in
triggering, and that this will be dealt with through mass online media posts, shaming,
humiliation, isolation from friendship groups etc – is this the world we want to build?
To work together, to have an open orientation towards struggle is difficult and you can’t
expect not to be hurt in some way when people who aren’t socialised in the same cirlces say
things that a ack the core of your self.
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I'm triggered July 7, 2014 at 9:53 am #
I'm Triggered - #imtriggered

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Lena July 7, 2014 at 9:52 am #
Reblogged this on A Blog About Culture and commented:
Following the implications of hurt feelings, finger-pointing, sensitivity, and – as one
commenter put it – the “culture of umbrage” that envelops the cultural sphere.
REPLY
TJ July 7, 2014 at 11:33 am #
Reblogged this on The Unhappy Consciousness and commented:
One of the best pieces I have read recently on some of the problems with contemporary
identity politics.
REPLY
The Advocationist July 7, 2014 at 11:35 am #
Amazing. Great article! One I’ve been waiting to read for a LONG time!
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majortominor July 7, 2014 at 12:00 pm #
I’m a prof at an elite liberal arts college who teaches courses on gender and sexuality, as well
as American lit. Been teaching for 18 years. The only times I’ve ever received complaints
from students of the nature of “we needed a warning” or “why did we have to watch that”
were for depictions of consensual sex between men in a book by Samuel Delany. I also teach
about slavery, racial violence, and lynching–including lynching photos. Never received a
single complaint about being triggered by that material. I don’t have any problem with profs
doing their own thing, but make an institutional policy on trigger warnings and you’ll see a
lot of homophobia, transphobia, and the like rain down, with institutional sanction. People
will be demanding trigger warnings for representations of homosexuality, of women who
choose to have abortions, etc.
I also have to say that the generation gap here is striking. Coming of age in the ACT UP era,
we never believed we could live in a safe world. Because you can’t. No one can. That’s just
the way it is. People who try to convince that you can are usually trying to seize power in
some way–witness the War on Terror, the War on Drugs.
I sometimes feel like a lot of today’s activists were raised in pizza meetings with their college
deans. I know that’s more indicative of the generation gap than anything else, but that’s how
it feels.
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TJ July 8, 2014 at 9:04 am #
Yeah, those entitled kids today, thinking they have the right to be safe from harm. How
dare they.
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majortominor July 8, 2014 at 9:23 am #
Good luck with that.

The right to be safe? From what? Life? And let’s not forget: it’s exactly the unspoken
promise of the War on Terror: Americans have the historically unique and exceptional
right to be safe. And damnation to everyone else.
Ginkgo July 8, 2014 at 12:56 pm #
“Yeah, those entitled kids today, thinking they have the right to be safe from harm.
How dare they.”
Well exactly. Because if it isn’t their job to protect themselves, it becomes someone
else’s. And why should it?

GIngko, I don’t understand your comment. Also, there is a big difference between
protecting oneself, which of course everyone ought to do, and believing one can be, or
has a right to be, “safe from harm.” I apologize for not being be er at explaining why
I think this across what seems to be a very big impasse/divide, but I also don’t see
very many people on the pro- trigger warning trying to actually engage this issue,
which Murat articulates powerfully in my opinion.

Just because you don’t *mean* for a position to be conservative or eminently
exploitable by conservatism doesn’t mean that it isn’t.
Arlene Goldbard July 7, 2014 at 12:19 pm #

Thanks for a really interesting take on this. I linked to your essay in the blog I posted today
on this subject. h p://arlenegoldbard.com/2014/07/07/on-safety-and-umbrage/
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Straw Queer July 7, 2014 at 1:15 pm #
As one proud Tranny to another, thank you Jack! People who are overly and unduly
offended are truly offensive. Guess what folks, we all suffer! Life is tough! Stop the white
whining! Grow a pair! By “A Pair” I mean ovaries, of course! Hope that triggered you!
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sitara July 7, 2014 at 1:30 pm #
You claim that ge ing offended over words such as “tranny”, rather then focusing on real
discrimination, constitutes censorship, not activism, thus holding the trans community back.
However, considering “tranny” is a short from of “transgender”, I can understand why it
might be easier to reclaim then, say, words such as “nigger” or “faggot”, which do have
historical weight and have been used to oppress certain groups of people. Additionally, in
my experience, the term “trigger” has primarily been employed to warn victims of sexual
assault that the content they are about to see includes graphic depiction of sexual assault. In
many cases, trigger warning is an act of compassion. Lastly, I think you vastly underestimate
the maturity of LGBTQ youth; the majority that I have come into contact with were grateful
that they had a strong support system and did not face the abuse that many sexual minority
teens do. That being said, to trivialize the suffering of LGBTQ teens (who are 4 times more
likely than straight teens to kill themselves) by claiming the majority make themselves out to
be victims, is largely false. Speaking as a teen, yes, we occassionally buy into the “my life is
so hard” narrative, but generally, teens want to be and want to be seen as strong, happy, and
successful.
All these critisisms aside, I do agree with your sentiment that various modern social justice
movements need to work together instead of pointing fingers at each other. While I believe
words ARE very important, they are not as important as images, behaviors, laws, and other
social norms that need to be reformed.
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Caylin Allison Todd July 7, 2014 at 1:42 pm #
While I can understand your feelings on the cumbersome political acrobatics to avoid
triggering folk, I feel that there may be some oversimplification when it comes to the Tranny
slur. I personally believe we should reclaim it at some point, but I also feel that in order to
do so it must be done by ourselves. No one in the 60’s would want a white ally throwing
around “Nigger” to diminish the negative context, just as gay folk wouldn’t want straights
to try and reclaim “Faggot” in the 80’s either. You mentioned ACT UP helped turned gay
slurs around, and that’s cool, but they were gay- it was theirs to reclaim.
To put it in perspective, transgender people face an inordinate amount of violence and

hostility; about half of LGBT murders are of a transwomen (mostly transwomen of colour)
despite being an almost invisible minority in size, about 43 percent of us commit suicide,
and we lack the same basic rights and freedoms as our cisgender counterparts. Worst of all,
most folk don’t even have a clear understanding that Transsexuals aren’t Drag Queens.
Forcing us to adapt to a generalized slur for both of us kind of puts us in a rough spot when
we’re trying to find a job, partner, or life and all people can think in the back of their head is
that we’ve somehow associated with a gay bar novelty. Considering our situation, it’s just
not a great time to muddy the waters of a perceptually confused America for flair factor.
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amy July 7, 2014 at 3:12 pm #
I agree with most of this and hate the phrase “trigger warning”, but I don’t think all of it is
just whiny bullshit. I especially disagree with the part about the word “tranny”.
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queerkitsch July 7, 2014 at 4:34 pm #
I have a lot of feelings and thoughts regarding this post but what is si ing on the tip of my
tongue is how ironic it is that Halberstam is suggesting that trigger warning is detracting
from actual ba les that need to be fought yet this article is doing just that. While I don’t have
a problem with the conversation this piece is buzzing because it seems that unlike
Halberstam I see these dialogues as essential to other ba les but it us vividly ironic and also
gas the potential to be manipulated it the wrong hands (such as MRAs mobilizing the
censorship train of thought)
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queerkitsch July 7, 2014 at 4:40 pm #
I have a lot of feelings and thoughts regarding this post but what is si ing on the tip of my
tongue is how ironic it is that Halberstam is suggesting that trigger warnings are detracting
from actual ba les that need to be fought yet this article is doing just that. While I don’t have
a problem with the conversation this piece is buzzing because it seems that unlike
Halberstam I see these dialogues as essential to other ba les but it is vividly ironic and also
has the potential to be manipulated it the wrong hands (such as MRAs mobilizing the
censorship train of thought)
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Barry Woods July 7, 2014 at 5:08 pm #
BUT, the life of Brian is not a re-writing of the life of Christ
” It tells the story of Brian Cohen (played by Chapman), a young Jewish man who is born on
the same day as, and next door to, Jesus Christ and is subsequently mistaken for the
Messiah”
h p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian
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CAV July 7, 2014 at 5:40 pm #
A lot of this resonates incredibly strongly with me. OTOH what is his obsession with
denigrating “white lady feminists”–he erases black feminists and lesbian separatists from
one era, then credits them with saving feminism in a later era. I was part of 90s feminism,
but frankly, other than confronting Operation Rescue, we didn’t face or overcome anything
as difficult 50s-70s feminists did. And by the 80s, at least we weren’t being actively
sabotaged by other women (at least not as much). Birth control, Roe v. Wade, Title XI–does
he really think all this was accomplished by a bunch of pathetic whiners?
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Karin Fromuranus July 8, 2014 at 9:54 am #
yeah, this was bugging me too.
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William Burns July 7, 2014 at 8:59 pm #
Wow, that is a lot of Monty Python references. Definitely ge ing a fellow child of the
seventies vibe.
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Queen July 7, 2014 at 9:23 pm #
Great piece, Jack. I’m so sick of trigger warnings and trauma/therapy culture, people
glossing over systemic problems in favor of a politics of personal grievance. I keep thinking
about the way Foucault talked about confession– trigger warnings are part of this.
In relation to child abuse, Ian Hacking says that “Ever since Augustine, conversion
experiences have been associated with confessions– the retelling of one’s own past, the true
past that one had been denying. All this if familiar: therapy as conversion, confession, and
the restructuring of the remembrances of one’s past.”
Beat up your partner? Something must’ve triggered you, like a flashback. Eat your son’s
whole birthday cake at 2 in the morning? We can’t blame you. Defecate in a charity book
deposit box? We all cope in our own ways. Enjoy Coldplay’s music? The source of the
pathology is apparent.
Be triggered, confess, or whatever: You are hereby absolved of guilt. Amen.
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You know what triggers me? The prison industrial complex. Pervasive societal
heteronormativity. Rape culture. The AIDS epidemic.
No one is entitled to not feel triggered. As RuPaul said, “bitch, you need to get stronger.”
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TJ July 8, 2014 at 9:02 am #
Yes, rape victims and people with PTSD just need to suck it up.
And people in wheelchairs just need to get over themselves and go for a jog.
And people with schizophrenia need to eat more vegetables.
Seriously, did you even dedicate 000.5 seconds worth of actual thought to this issue
before vomiting up that nonsense?
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A rape victim should certainly be able to expect that their sweetheart will honor a
request not to wear the some cologne the rapist wore, because it triggers bad feelings.
But they can’t expect they will never encounter that scent on the subway or see bo les
for it in the drug store nor expect everyone who will be discussing the issue of rape to
put up a trigger warning. So, yeah, a certain amount of sucking it up is necessary.
Because the alternative is the world of Harrison Bergeron.
And people in wheelchairs have to suck it up and realize that others–even people
they love–may still enjoy dancing, leaping and running. And they don’t get a trigger
warning before Julie Andrews bursts into singing “Climb Every Mountain” at the
start of The Sound of Music.
Trying to police the use of a word–especially trying to convince allies from dropping
it–only increases the power of the word to do harm. If, as Audrey writes above, the
only meaning of “tranny” to those who would use it to torment is “a pre-operative or
non-operative trans woman, usually naked,” then silencing those who use it to mean
something else only increases its power to harm. The *only* way to be able to stop a
word from harming is to reclaim it–to actively change its meaning through changing
the context of its use, and that means using it more, not less.
That’s why the biggest applause moment in the original British “Queer as Folk” is
Stuart’s self-outing, when he claims every slur and negative stereotype and thereby
robs them of their power to harm him: “Because I’m queer. I’m gay. I’m homosexual.
I’m a poof, I’m a poofter, I’m a ponce. I’m a bumboy, baddieboy, backside artist,
bugger. I’m bent. I am that arsebandit. I lift those shirts. I’m a faggot-ass, fudge-
packing, shit-stabbing uphill gardener. I dine at the downstairs restaurant, I dance at
the other end of the ballroom. I’m Moses and the parting of the red cheeks. I fuck and
I am fucked. I suck and I am sucked. I rim them and wank them, and every single
man’s had the fucking time of his life. And I am not a pervert. If there’s one twisted
bastard in this family, it’s this li le blackmailer here.”
You want to carve out a safe space in your home: Go for it. There should be a place in
your life where you can take off your armor. But the world is not your safe space and
never will be. Whining about that fact makes you weaker. Policing the language of
your friends and allies makes them weaker and only increases the power of the
policed words to do harm. And only people are people–not corporations, and not
identity-based political groups. People may have triggers–usually quite idiosyncratic
and unexpected ones (after my partner died of AIDS, I once spontaneously collapsed
in tears in the nutrition supplements aisle of the drugstore seeing a shelf lined with
cans of Ensure)–groups and identities do not.
Your words, bro. Mine were something else entirely.
Murat July 8, 2014 at 6:16 pm #

The argument is not about sucking it up, ge ing over oneself, toughen it out. Nobody
is arguing the experiences of victims should be ignored. Nobody is dismissing
vulnerability. The issue is whether there is a ‘right’ not to be triggered. That’s an
entirely different thing, really.

@Murat: If the issue is “whether there is a ‘right’ not to be triggered” then there is no
issue to discuss. Of course there is no such right.
Leave it July 8, 2014 at 3:24 am #

You are an academic, not an activist, so please stick to that. And if you don’t like the focus of
certain kinds of activists, why not focus on lifting up the work of groups you respect. Maybe
even donating some of your neoliberal university salary?
And I hope you avoid neurological trouble, including neurotoxicity, since you appear to be a
hater and denier of people trying to get by with chemical sensitivities. I sincerely hope that
you never know what that feels like.
REPLY
mary July 8, 2014 at 7:31 am #
everyone’s responsible for their own behaviour/language. if someone says they’re offended
or hurt by something you do or say it’s up to you whether you take it seriously, but you
don’t tell them to shut up. people complaining about people complaining is absurd. you talk
about infighting, about useless discourse? this article is a perfect example. if you want to
work on something more productive instead of addressing people’s “neoliberal” bu hurt
then do just that! why are you wasting time complaining on the internet???
REPLY
TJ July 8, 2014 at 9:08 am #
Making your argument with shi y Homestuck comics: a true hallmark of academic rigor.
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Sable July 8, 2014 at 10:16 am #
You say there is no humor in the current Queer Liberation movement, but I disagree.
Personally I found it hilarious a long established member of the Academy would say street
level activists are not being radical enough while at the same time warn them about being
unable to find employment in existing institutional power structures if they keep this up.
Was this level of irony intentional and scripted out? Or was it instead a simply a by-product
of the desire to be another trans masculine person telling trans women they are not being
radical enough in their gender politics?
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Will She erly July 8, 2014 at 12:28 pm #
“You say there is no humor in the current Queer Liberation movement, but I disagree.”
Mocking others isn’t humor—or if it is, every bully’s a comic. Humor calls for being able
to laugh at anything, and especially at yourself.
REPLY
ma July 8, 2014 at 11:07 am #
The Life of Brian is not about Christ, it’s about religions in general. Jesus is portrayed in the
film, at least two times – once as a baby, and then again during his Sermon on the Mount.
The film is about Brian, and how people believe him to be a prophet and blindly follow him
(e.g. “Yes, we’re all individuals!” and “How should we ‘fuck off’?”). It’s not a rewriting of
Christ’s life, because Christ was in the film. It’s an absurd, and very funny, view on religion.
And next, you say how the movie would be banned in cinemas today, I would disagree.
Have you seen the movies put out today? There’s tons of sex and violence, making religious
satire look like child’s play. Maybe the scene of Chapman’s penis would be a bit saucy, but
there is full-frontal nudity in movies today. And the “scenes of Christ” you mention would
surely not be banned today, as 1) the first scene is him as a baby, and 2) during his Sermon
on the Mount, he is properly portrayed as a fine man, but it’s the people who “misread” his
comments which make the humor (see: “the cheese makers”). Which, again, is just satire on
how people misinterpret (or: read what they want to read) religious dogma.
I know I am taking away from the general content of this article, however, I wanted to help
clarify what The Life of Brian is about (per what the Pythons, themselves, have said – check
YouTube interviews). I have to defend Python and this film, as I love both greatly. This film
shouldn’t’ve been banned in Norway, or other countries, because,like you, they believe it
was mocking Christ. It’s not. It’s mocking religion.
Thanks for your time.
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Natalie Shaw (@AllGodsDangers) July 8, 2014 at 1:09 pm #
I look forward to when this episode passes and the queers who object to being called
quaking whiners return to their regular activity of throwing bricks and bo les at cops. Or…
at least posting pictures of other people doing that 40 years ago on twi er or on the next
flyer for their radical nonprofit.
REPLY
Scarle July 9, 2014 at 1:10 am #
A-FUCKING-MEN.
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David Jager July 9, 2014 at 9:20 am #
It is also problematic when discourse is reduced to what is essentially a flat paradigm.
Conversation is more than stilted when your advance strategy is “I have the right to stop
your argument in its tracks if you say anything that makes me feel bad, or reminds me of
time when I was made to feel bad.” What is the point of conversation then? Why not
eliminate the idea of discourse and rhetoric altogether ( it’s confrontational and oppositional
underpinnings were so agressive and patristic to begin with!) and replace it with support
groups, where we all huddle together for comfort saying mutually reassuring bromides?
There is also a problem in the assumption of a historical continuity between all the different
disposessed members of community. Why is it that when a empting to addressing self-
identified communities the lexical subdivisions become increasingly nuanced and complex (
you can never use the right term or pronoun), but when it comes to a history of abuse or
oppression, they suddenly stand shoulder to shoulder and unified with every victim of a
vaguely similar provenance from the present moment all the way back through recorded
history? The extension of this argument is also that the offender becomes strangely
identified (notwithstanding their intent), with some shiboleth of monolithic cisgendered
oppression. It’s an interesting and very unsubtle division. The oppressed subject stands
shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed, and the cisgendered oppressor stands unwi ingly
on the side of the oppressor, given that they are unwi ing cogs in the crushing machine of
heteronormativity. That’s the big picture, right? But in contextualizing the history of
sexuality in this way aren’t we allowing tropes of power to permeate every aspect of our
intimate lives? Am I supposed to raise my fist in solidarity every time I have an orgasm?
What happened to privacy, indeterminacy, ambiguity? This is part of the larger problem of
the politicization of sexuality. If it’s about power sharing, and votes, then there is no room
for discourse. It’s about raising up the largest voting block and grabbing your share of ‘safe
space’. If its a discourse of power we want, then we don’t want a discussion, we want to
negotiate for our own territory, and to hell with whatever you were thinking over there.
Which is fine, and understandable- but its hardly a great end game for discourse. My
understanding of discourse was that it requires an uknowable ‘other’, something that forces
us to shift and refine our position into something that ultimately fits in a larger and (
temporarily unified) paradigm. I thought this was the work of culture. But if culture is so
thoroughly permeated by cisgendered oppression that it isn’t fit to stand, then we adopt a
revolutionary paradigm, and hope to forge a new space where everyone can define
themselves as intricately as possible without ever having to answer to anything that might
question their journey of sexuality and individuation. A sexuality, in other words. that does
away with the other. Wasn’t it Foucault who taught us to be extremely careful to dismantle
not only the content of a discourse but to step back and observe its larger context?
REPLY
eriktrips July 9, 2014 at 8:02 pm #
I am going to write more elsewhere. I think. In fact I might not post this here at all but let’s
see if I can remain within the point I think I want to make here before I go off and make all
the others that are demanding that I write them down or they will keep me up all night.
Disclaimer: this is going to be broad and not directed at any single person writing here. It is
also not going to address anything regarding the word we are fighting about–at least not
directly. But I am noticing this other point of conversation that maybe I can add a li le
substance to? I keep reading about people who *really really* have PTSD and aren’t just
faking it and I figure I can speak to this a li le bit since I really really do have PTSD and
have really really experienced multiple “flashbacks” as we sometimes call them, that come
out of the blue sometimes and wreck whole days, weeks, months, sometimes years.
So hi. There is more to say about us people with PTSD but the only point I am going to make
here concerns the rhetoric of the wounded self and of personal responsibility as
complementary neo-liberal devices for discounting cultural violence and cultural
responsibility. Because on the one hand, if the wounded self needs to be refigured as
something other than an isolated psychological entity, then so does personal responsibility
need to be refigured as something other than Your Problem, Not Mine.
That’s all, really. Tangential to the concerns of trans* people except maybe insofar as I am
one of those too and untangling everything to deal separately with each
identity/label/diagnosis/problem/feature/thing-that-I-somehow-am-although-not-quite-so-
much-like-is-usually-described is nearly impossible for me anymore.
If as a culture we are going to address multiple systemic oppressions then I think we have to
also look at how Personal Responsibility places many oppressed populations in an
untenable position: that of single-handedly addressing and ameliorating the conditions of
their oppression, quite without the help of those benefi ing from those conditions and
certainly without bothering anyone whose lives are not affected by those conditions.
I can be more concrete but since this is sort of a sideline issue except that you all brought up
trauma and when you do that sometimes it summons me although most often you wouldn’t
know it I am going to leave off here with this:
I am not sure we can have this both ways: either the wounded self gets taken up entirely in
political and cultural resistance, not to be told it is Our Problem when it appears something
might need to be done collectively about the collective woundedness that remains after the
self is dismissed–because it does remain–or we be sent on our way to individual psycho-
therapy so that we can take personal responsibility and not bother anyone else and not
reenter society until we are “be er” and able to function like normal folk and let The
Movement get on with its business. Which we would be part of. But we’re broken and must
go to the shop for a li le while first.
Maybe you see the contradiction that I see here? Maybe not. I will have to try again later.
Ok I kept going. I should probably add then that I do not advocate censorship and have no
power to censor anything. Nor do I advocate the reification of personal freedom as primary
over our responsibility to each other. In the US that is a very unpopular opinion I realize.
Ok. That’s all. For now. Here. I think.
REPLY
adrianstephenson July 9, 2014 at 10:24 pm #
The piece has interesting points. But I think it also scapegoats millennials, the crowd
probably most into using trigger warnings and fighting these li le ba les over language.
You’re looking at a bunch of 15-25 year olds saying, “why are you so occupied with insults
when you could fight the neoliberal-capitalist-regime!” as if there aren’t 15-25 year olds
doing that, and as if we all just came perfectly formed out of this vacuum to transform the
world order and decided to complain about what someone said to us on the internet instead.
But what I would really like to say is: there is a valid place for trigger warnings and being
concerned about language. And it does help make us sensitive to the racist, sexist,
heteronormative systems of privilege and oppression you would like us to focus on. Taking
time to develop humor and jokes that aren’t racially or sexually charged, and calling out the
problems they cause, is a ground-up way of confronting large top-down systems. Using
trigger warnings helps create safe space, and being sensitive to requests for them validates
peoples identities in powerful ways – it says to rape survivors, abuse survivors, LGBT folks
that have found themselves subject to slurs and harassment, people struggling with mental
illness, whatever: you are a valid person and I recognize that you exist. Instead of saying
what I want to say and ignoring your existence, I’m going to acknowledge it and create
space where we can all talk together about it.
Do triggers sometimes get a li le inane? Yes. Are millennials too busy looking at their cell
phones and feeling bad about themselves? Some of us probably are! But that doesn’t mean
what we *do* do doesn’t count as activism (the personal is political, after all), or that
understanding and subverting the politics of language isn’t a way to fight oppression.
REPLY
SD Holman July 10, 2014 at 2:08 am #
Thank you Jack for taking the time to write this smart, funny and interesting article.
I have been thinkin a lot about this stuff and I have felt censored by my fellow queers for not
using the right words.
Wasn’t/isn’t it post-structuralism’s fault really for making the use of the right language so
important? And it is; keeping in mind of course we are not static, that language and meaning
changes over time and in different ways in different communities, but that is another article
– Where we run into so much difficulty and heartache is when we use smart ideas as the
stick to beat each other with.
There is a lot of privilege, bullying and judgment that gets thrown around in our queer
communities, this is not news or new in marginalized communities; of course so much has
been wri en on that- when we feel so li le power-we cant get to the guy who is throwing
the baby’s in the water, so we a ack the ally right next to us because they ‘have’ so much
more privilege than we do; as my late beloved wife said ‘don’t become a leader we eat our
own’. A sad state of affairs indeed. but keep up the resistance, even if it feels like it changes
nothing- because it keeps us human. Thank you for continuing to do the work you do.
love, a Tranny fag butch dyke
REPLY
michaelnovick July 10, 2014 at 3:28 am #
I am in my late 60s and have been in “the movement” since the 60s and haven’t had much
contact with this whole train of thought although I do most of my political work with people
40 years or more younger than I am. I will have to say, to me it sounds like the difference
between anger and resentment. Stuff you resent, you are actually holding on to, kind of
nursing it like a drink, maintaining an a achment to. Anger is a lot healthier; you express it,
release it, use it to motivate effective action, and move on. Saying something “triggers” you
is giving away a whole lot of power and autonomy to someone else, and denying your own
responsibility for your own feelings. Every oppositional movement always carries within it
an incorporation of the values and beliefs of the system it opposes; simultaneously that
system always seeks to produce a kind of killed-virus version of the opposition (bourgeois
feminism, porkchop nationalism, assimilationist gays and lesbians, etc) to inoculate people
against the infectious real deal of revolution. People just have to learn not to throw the baby
out with the bathwater; to identify the systemic enemy and to engage in struggles that will
weaken it and strengthen the forces of liberation. Doing so will require, demand great
fortitude, self-sacrifice and the willingness to withstand and overcome serious trauma,
repression and loss. Learn a lesson from the CA prisoner hunger strikers, who have been
subjected to torture isolation for decades in many cases and have found and expressed a
healing solidarity and humanity in their resistance.
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Laura July 10, 2014 at 3:31 am #
A misunderstanding, unfortunately. The point is not that we erode and divide communities
with our trauma, and it is not that we are ignoring the real enemies, but that we have
discovered over years of organizing with your ilk who our community really is, and who
our enemies really are. What you experience as a supposed loss of community is in fact the
reality of class conflict – a class conflict in which you are the exploiter class.
REPLY
Will She erly July 10, 2014 at 12:46 pm #
“we have discovered over years of organizing with your ilk who our community really
is”
People who think in terms of “your ilk” seem to be more interested in fighting than
uniting.
REPLY
laroquod July 10, 2014 at 11:36 am #
Obligatory pedantry: I think you meant ‘hypo-allergenic’ which describes substances which
are less likely to trigger allergies. ‘Hypo-allergic’ would designate a person is who not very
allergic to anything in the first place.
REPLY
d4m10n July 10, 2014 at 12:04 pm #
Reblogged this on Blue Ball Skeptics and commented:
Excellent middling-to-long form piece on the insurgent rhetoric of emotional trauma.
REPLY
seth edenbaum July 10, 2014 at 3:23 pm #
It’s always amused me how many people defend queer theory and queerness as being
a acked by the right without defending it explicitly as being of the left. Queerness isn’t a
critique of class; it’s defined as mocking bourgeois normalcy, and that fits in fine with
conservatism of the Old Regime, as if does with Reagan and neoliberal America. I remember
an agent of a British oligarch say in passing that after his meeting with my boss discussing
million dollar deals he was off to a “die in” in midtown. As Johann Hari pointed out years
ago “With the exception of Jean-Marie Le Pen, all the most high-profile fascists in Europe in
the past thirty years have been gay.” Tell me about Tom of Finland.
The demimonde is never radical; I’ve been around it long enough to know. The utopian
collapsing of art and life is a hallmark of both fashion and fascism, and Holly Golightly is an
icon of anti-humanism, of anti-political ‘sensitivity’ as opposed to democratic responsibility.
The only person I’ve ever heard refer to the tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton as
models of homosexual love and honor was Robert Hughes, in 1981.
And if you really want to wonder how things have changed in popular cinema, never mind
Life of Brian, check the scenes on the beach in Morocco is Prick Up Your Ears”
h p://blog.edenbaumstudio.com/2014/03/repeat-more-vivid-proof-not-mentioned.html
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wakingofthebear July 10, 2014 at 6:08 pm #
Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed, although you blog obviously doesn’t need the
boost.
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tealtomato July 10, 2014 at 6:10 pm #
Wow, fascinating article. Recently a staunch feminist, I find your perspective very
interesting. My opinion is that freedom is the best goal — including people’s freedom from
their own sexism (racism, homophobia, or any “ism” or “phobia”). Yours is one to consider,
I’ll have to mull this over for awhile. I agree that our fight should be more united. A human
is never the enemy.
REPLY
adikpesolomon July 10, 2014 at 6:14 pm #
Reblogged this on adikpesolomon and commented:
Life is minded all time!
REPLY
appslotus July 10, 2014 at 6:23 pm #
Reblogged this on Apps Lotus's Blog.
REPLY
Chasing23 July 10, 2014 at 6:25 pm #
Great Name! Bully bloggers!
REPLY
moderndayruth July 10, 2014 at 6:41 pm #
A friend of mine shared your post on facebook recenly and i read it with great interest.
Congrats on being freshly pressed!
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J.W. McNabb July 10, 2014 at 7:49 pm #
Although I do not personally have much experience with the subject ma er, I agree
wholeheartedly with the overall position you present here.
We have come to a point in our society when what is said is not what we mean, what we
think is constantly scrutinized, and what we feel is weighed and measured against what
others say we should feel. Many have lost their sense of self, and instead have molded who
they are into what they think people want them to be. And, your position on trigger words is
spot on – it is quickly becoming the equivalent to the young shepherd boy who cried wolf.
The voices of those who are truly yearning to be heard are being drowned out by the ones
yelling at the top of their lungs because they simply want more a ention.
REPLY
allthoughtswork July 10, 2014 at 9:41 pm #
It can all be summed up in four li le words: “It’s not my fault!”
That’s right–your sagging health, your dwindling finances, your waves of manic anxiety–
these can all be conveniently and cathartically pinned on some outside force. There’s always
something OUT THERE that supersedes your own strength, integrity, and personal
evolution. Why grow when you can sue?
Nobody argues whether the sun exists because that’s obvious. Well, our intrinsic value and
freedom is obvious, too, but we spend all day arguing about it with morons who don’t
agree. If you really wanna piss them off, ignore them and have a fantastic life, anyway.
Drives ’em crazy and no lawyers.
REPLY
Sarabi Nikolanna Eventide July 11, 2014 at 2:03 am #
Thank you so much for writing this. I’ve been having this debate with some friends for a
while. They want to censor my use of the word “nigga” which I consider a reclaimed word.
People say all variations are offensive, but I believe the -er version is the only truly offensive
version, and even then I don’t see the point in taking it out of The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn. That just ruins good literature.
I’m actually planning on writing an article on this topic for my school’s newspaper. You’ve
given me some interesting things to think about. Now I need to find counterarguments so I
can address them as well. Again, thank you for being a breath of fresh air in our overly-
sensitive world.
REPLY
Desire July 11, 2014 at 7:25 am #
WOW this was an epic read! Brilliant!
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creativeconfessions July 11, 2014 at 9:15 am #
Thank you very much for this well-reasoned, eloquent statement. I myself have suffered
from being triggered in the past thanks to my own personal series of traumatic events, but I
discovered when working as a part-time teacher at one point that a lot of people take the
term “trigger” way too far. Yes, many have faced traumatic experiences and situations and
certain day-to-day occurrences may give them excruciatingly painful flashbacks, but the
term “trigger” has now become so loosely and freely used that it has lost most of its initial
meaning. I’ve been wanting to get my thoughts down into a cohesive set of words for a
while but I really couldn’t have said it be er myself. This is poignant. Thank you for sharing!
REPLY
thefanartist July 11, 2014 at 10:56 am #
Brilliant!
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Sherwin July 11, 2014 at 3:29 pm #
Please check with me before talking about trigger.
Thanks
Roy Rogers.
REPLY
BW July 11, 2014 at 6:39 pm #
I wonder how much of the substance in this is lost in people responding to the “bully”-ish
tone of the polemic (on a site called Bullybloggers – shock!). If I’m reading correctly the
critique is targeting a politics that centers self-preservation and security over the risky work
of collective liberation.
Courage and resilience aren’t cis-masculinist principles, nor are they aren’t monopolized by
whiteness – just as vulnerability need not be the primary, let alone exclusive, mode of
blackness/femmeness/gender-nonconformity/wagelessness. Courage and resilience are vital
not only for surviving systems designed to contain and kill us, but more importantly for
overcoming and smashing them to bits so that we might thrive collectively. Yes, we are
vulnerable and radically unsafe, and those of us who act on our radical politics in ways that
threaten hierarchies and material structures should expect and prepare to face even greater
risk. But we are and always have been more than vulnerable, and we must be more if we
want our lives to approach anything proximate to dignity and well being instead of
victimhood.
When we identify queerness with possibility rather than location, I wonder how certain
claims of disability reveal themselves as cynical unwillingness and complicity in face of fear.
But rather than shame people in their resistance against risk, maybe we can follow Toni
Cade Bambara’s example in sharing stories and art that “make revolution irresistable”?
Instead of determining whether one’s traumas are authentic or whether one’s political
authenticity and credibility requires verification within in a hierarchy of traumatic
experiences, we might benefit from sharing more stories about people who have moved
forward with determination after they’ve fallen, or about the persons unknown who took
tremendous risk, who were never caught and live among us. If some people feel compelled
to defend the safety of relative innocents or canonize the dead who have been entrapped by
the state due to their blackness/femmeness/gender-nonconformity/wagelessness, perhaps
the rest of us can commit more resources and imagination toward aiding and abe ing those
of us that are guilty of wanting something more queer than the present state of things. Some
of us call that abolition.
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Therese Lu July 11, 2014 at 7:16 pm #
Thanks for sharing! Very insightful piece.
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lemurtide July 12, 2014 at 2:49 am #
Consider the fact that the author thinks the voluntary deployment of trigger warnings by a
handful of academics (an artificial “problem” affecting approximately 0% of the overall
population) is more pressing than his own furtherance of dismissive sexist argumentation in
a culture which still violently and institutionally abuses women…anyone seen the latest
research on widespread non-investigation of rape at universities?
At least someone knows how to think about phrases like the author’s “weepy…feminism.”
h p://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/09/men-really-need-to-stop-
calling-women-crazy/
REPLY
imaxme July 12, 2014 at 3:12 am #
Reblogged this on Imax World Of Max's Blog.
REPLY
Brilliant, Jack: “…saying that you feel harmed by another queer person’s use of a reclaimed
word like ‘tranny’ and organizing against the use of that word is NOT social activism. It is
censorship.” I applaud your considered thinking on these difficult topics.
I have lived through and participated in most of the “eras” you describe. You forgot t
mention the part where some claim that my recognition of my bisexuality is considered false
by others. I also insist that most people are bisexual (biologically correct), and that anyone
who has even a modicum of a raction, in dreams or otherwise, to both or all genders is bi-,
or omnisexual. I get a lot of hate mail for that.
My pet peeve: applauding EVERYONE and exalting mediocrity in the process. Good on ya!
REPLY
Reblogged this on Sally Ember, Ed.D. and commented:
Brilliant, Jack: “…saying that you feel harmed by another queer person’s use of a reclaimed
word like ‘tranny’ and organizing against the use of that word is NOT social activism. It is
censorship.” I applaud your considered thinking on these difficult topics.
I have lived through and participated in most of the “eras” you describe. You forgot t
mention the part where some claim that my recognition of my bisexuality is considered false
by others. I also insist that most people are bisexual (biologically correct), and that anyone
who has even a modicum of a raction, in dreams or otherwise, to both or all genders is bi-,
or omnisexual. I get a lot of hate mail for that.
My pet peeve: applauding EVERYONE and exalting mediocrity in the process. Good on ya!
REPLY
murph July 12, 2014 at 4:15 pm #
I offer my feedback not to contend with your assertions, which I mostly agree with, but
hopefully to spark some kind of useful dialectical engagement.
As a person who suffers from mild to intense post-traumatic stress disorder, I

wholeheartedly believe that the force of trauma is repeatedly mis-directed within
communities of “resistance”. We are generationally conditioned to direct the pure blinding
rage of a trauma response either (a) inwards, through actions of self-harm or (b)
horizontally, through accusing others who basically, in terms of a global analysis, have the
same level of power as we do. Escalation of horizontal hostility is a hallmark of trauma, and
is used repeatedly by the state to dismantle and dissolve our movements. What we really
need is (c) to funnel the rage upwards in the power system, to direct it as a force at those
who would keep a system of global inequity in place.
As a person who spends a fuckton of time both managing my PTSD and pouring my life
into anti-capitalist organizing, I am daily left with the question: how do I actually use my
trauma responses as fuel for my work? Being “triggered”, having a trauma reaction, is one
of the consistently most physically and mentally intense things that happens to me. I become
severely dissociated, can often become actively suicidal, am overcome with a sense of
learned helplessness and futility about everything, am uncontrollably burning with rage,
and often have to spend days managing these symptoms to bring myself back to a baseline
functional state. Trauma is pre-lingual, outside of the logic of standard social exchange. I
can’t go to an organizing meeting and be functional if I’m hella triggered. I can barely
control the rage so as to not harm myself or my comrades.
So my question to you: how do we shift the cultural pa erning around trauma to de-escalate
horizontal hostility and use it as a weapon in the struggle? The critique your article offers,
while spot on in many ways, is almost substantively empty as long as it lacks an
implementable framework for action for those of us who, without one, collapse into a
quivering sobbing mess. Repeatedly and without end.
REPLY
Chris July 12, 2014 at 9:01 pm #
Reblogged this on I Fucking Hate Facebook and commented:
As much as I love my feminism, I think I have to agree…
REPLY
sonatano1 July 12, 2014 at 9:42 pm #
I really just barely understand what “triggering” is – I’ve never spent any time in these
circles, so I can’t say anything about how they operate. But I think your piece seemed very
insightful. The context was much appreciated.
REPLY
Ali Kat July 13, 2014 at 2:27 am #
Fabulous article. In depth and very well wri en. Bravo !
REPLY
runaroundandfalldown July 13, 2014 at 5:34 pm #
I’m glad for the well thought out delivery of this essay. It’s an issue that I see constantly. A
group achieving social change by coloring themselves as victims for sympathy isn’t a
healthy way to self-represent. Regardless, of course, for whether the status of victim it is
‘earned,’ which trivializes the term for that group’s members who have suffered.
Thanks for the smart reminder that being (or being recognized as) LGBT, female, or a person
of color is not the end-all of human suffering. And it shouldn’t be treated as such for an
inclusive society!
REPLY
Nocturntable July 14, 2014 at 3:27 pm #
Reblogged this on nocturntable and commented:
There are no safe spaces. Make your own.
REPLY
Delphine July 15, 2014 at 10:57 am #
I found this a most illuminating read. Its logic reaches beyond the gender paradigm. I
struggle with the stultifying politically correct world that we live in in North America where
communication has become a bit like walking on raw ro en eggs – one unwi ing wrong
step and you stink.
Sometimes very simple truths can no longer be spoken, and astonishingly, politicians appear
prone to claiming victimhood as a credential in a empting to represent my social and
economic interests. I don’t think one needs to wallow in perpetual victimhood in order to
develop strength and courage. I think breaking free from it helps. And when breaking free
victimizes someone else, where are we then?
Take the perpetual conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians – each the victim of the
other. That mentality is not serving them in creating a way to live together, is it? We need to
get over ourselves and get on with the business of co-existing without becoming abusive
about it. Thanks for a great article, Jack.
REPLY
incompetentilluminati July 16, 2014 at 11:32 am #
I disagree with some of the ideas here, chiefly the ones about how we’re evolving into some
kind of weaker society within the LGBT movement. We’re not becoming more sensitive:
we’ve always been sensitive. We’ve just come into a society, suddenly, where we can talking
about feelings without some asshole yelling “faggot!” As for “triggers,” I understand that it
can reach the point of ridiculousness, but let’s try to see it differently. The truth is that the
very idea of a “Safe Zone” is a farce. There are no safe zones in our society, it does NOT
always get be er, and there are triggers everywhere. We have to live in society to affect any
kind of social change, and that means wading through the muck and a good bit of hate.
But take triggers. For the first time, here are young people who have been subjected to abuse
and rape (and who by no means “have it easy” simply because they’ve come from a new
generation — on this point, I disagree with you so hard I waggled my fist ruefully at the
screen) that are confiding in the general public about their vulnerability. It is an u erly
stupid act because it’s not helping anyone by trying to further censorship, but I find it tragic
and a tad heartbreaking that suddenly people see this as a weak generation, a brood of idiots
and mental midgets who can’t take a punch like their daddies and mommies. They’ve taken
just as many punches, statistics about child abuse, the prevalence of rape, and new studies
into the damaging effects of such traumatic experiences, especially on young minds are
abound.
They’re just having trouble internalizing it and forming a hard outer shell. Let’s not convince
ourselves we’re tougher than they are because we cry on the inside.
REPLY
Chupa October 17, 2014 at 7:57 pm #
This is the best thing I have read in several years. Thank you very much for writing it.
REPLY
skyride November 8, 2014 at 3:06 pm #
Reblogged this on Life on the Margins and commented:
Reblogged from Bully Bloggers.
Thoughts on this, but to come later.
REPLY
camilletoh November 15, 2014 at 10:44 pm #
You lost me right near the beginning where, during the description of how “excessively
politically correct” your activist groups became in your younger days, you add in a few
snide words about perfume allergies.
What does that have to do with the topic?
People may choose whether or not they freak out when someone says “tranny” but they do
not choose to have physical illnesses. If a person risks an asthma a ack or anaphylaxis or
even a less visible fragrance reaction like dizziness or headache, if they get exposed, yet they
want to participate in a group, why should they not ask their allies to take the easy, painless
step of making the meetings scent free? What would you have them do instead- hide at
home and not be part of the community, or silently endure exposure & then get sick and end
up missing a couple days of work or even going to the hospital? If a person like that asked
their group to accommodate and they did, it seems implied that you think those friends
were being too soft.
Shall we ignore all physical disabilities as “too PC” – no more ramps for wheelchair users or
captions for the deaf? Will your tough love approach give people the backbone they need to
shake their allergy, mobility problems or bad hearing? Of course not. Disabilities
accommodation is the only way some of us have even half a chance of living a full life. It is
not like the other examples you use- it is not a case of people developing a self pitying
a itude because they’ve been encouraged to whine.
I really don’t get why you had to take a swipe at physical disabilities. People can’t change
their disabilities no ma er how insensitively you treat them. That perfume example should
never have been included in an article that’s essentially about communication. It is off topic,
aside from alienating disabled readers like me, who might otherwise have enjoyed the
article.
REPLY
Tina November 23, 2014 at 7:29 pm #
Reblogged this on Learning in Public.
REPLY
dudebro April 16, 2015 at 5:26 pm #
As a straight white male with only a tangential exposure to queer culture I found this article
enlightening.
REPLY
jutelo May 12, 2015 at 4:55 am #
Reblogged this on JN201: Print and Online Media.
REPLY
Carolyn Kitione May 13, 2015 at 7:13 am #
Reblogged this on Over the Rainbow.
REPLY
740TAO July 19, 2015 at 1:51 pm #
Reblogged this on LMGTFY.
REPLY
venuspluto67 July 20, 2015 at 8:04 am #
I think there should be trigger warnings for discussions of violence and rape because the
effects of those things on people who have been subjected to them are an overriding concern
that trumps other considerations. However, the culture of “trigger warnings” as it currently
exists has degenerated into yet another form of wallowing in the sort of self-pitying
victimhood that has become so beloved of the left in this country of late. This doesn’t make
anybody a stronger person, rather it makes them weak, pathetic, and unable to deal with the
real world. This is just one of the plethora of valid reasons that so many people outside the
hallowed halls of academia hold political correctness in u er contempt.
REPLY
qwertina April 30, 2016 at 7:45 pm #
Once upon a time, the appellation “queer” named an opposition to identity politics, a
commitment to coalition, a vision of alternative worlds. Now it has become a weak umbrella
term for a confederation of identitarian concerns” ironically, it also circled back into “q*r/q-
slur”.
REPLY
Kim January 17, 2017 at 2:25 pm #
Wonderfully wri en article. Glad there are some brains left out there.
REPLY
david4445 February 11, 2018 at 1:45 pm #
Good points. I have issue with society automatically labeling this phenomenon ‘liberal.’ And
now ‘neo-liberal’ which refers to an ideological economic shift in the Democratic Party
under Bill Clinton. It’s largely some development at universities that has nothing to do with
politics. It’s how the Culture War works, keeping us all distracted from economic and
foreign policy issues, real politics. Plenty of ‘liberals’ are sick of PC extremism. My a itude
is, let the kids argue and sort it out but keep it out of politics.
REPLY
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
1. in response to Jack Halberstam’s “You are Triggering Me” | blog - July 5, 2014
[…] (term coined by my friend Michelle), and after i read jack halberstam’s article “You Are
Triggering Me: The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger, and Trauma,” i had a lot of […]
2. Response to Halberstam’s “You are triggering me!” | Don't Go Quietly Bi - July 5, 2014
[…] The original post I am responding to:
h ps://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/you-are-triggering-me-the-neo-liberal-
rhetoric-of-harm… […]
3. trigger warning : sur la rhétorique néolibérale de la souffrance, du danger, et du

traumatisme | wandering queer - July 6, 2014
[…] h ps://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/you-are-triggering-me-the-neo-liberal-
4. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN | lex gill - July 6, 2014

[…] From Jack Halberstam, “You are triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm,
Danger and Trauma:” […]
5. Against Niceness | Celeste LeCompte - July 6, 2014

[…] You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma […]
6. Around the Web Digest: Week of June 29 | Savage Minds - July 6, 2014
[…] Jack Halberstam wrote a thought provoking analysis of trigger warnings in the context
of neoliberalism. (Bully Bloggers) […]
7. You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma | Todd
Lester - July 6, 2014
[…] found this article interesting… and love the visual:) What do you think? In a round
about way, makes me […]
8. Snarking back | Teile des Ganzen - July 6, 2014

[…] a link to the blog post called “You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of
Harm, Danger and Trauma,” wri en by queer academic Jack Halberstam, popped up in my
Twi er timeline. I started […]
9. Finding the Fire to Go On | Dog Dharma's Blog - July 6, 2014

10. Why I No Longer Use Trigger Warnings | cet mohamed-moore - July 6, 2014
[…] way and it’s only this year that I’ve disavowed them as a rule. It took for me to read this
post on the Bully Bloggers’ site to enumerate […]
11. You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma | Bully
Bloggers | The Ferrous Scrolls - July 6, 2014
[…] via You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma |
Bully Bloggers. […]
12. The Ethic of Queer Toughness – en|Gender - July 7, 2014
[…] just read Jack Halberstam’s manifesto on queer toughness – “You’re Triggering Me! The
Neo Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger, and Trauma” – and I’m watching it gather
appreciative re-postings across a queer internet that is exhausted […]
13. Trigger warning: Trigger warnings (towards a different approach) | Rewriting The Rules -
July 7, 2014
[…] Jack Halberstam: You are triggering me! The neo-Liberal rhetoric of harm, danger and
trauma […]
14. Trigger Warning: a response to Jack Halberstam. | alicebreckless - July 7, 2014

[…] down to compose this response to Jack Halberstam’s piece on trigger warnings, which is
over here, was a content note. A content note is a li le flag at the start of a piece that says,
“yo: […]
15. On Safety and Umbrage | Arlene Goldbard - July 7, 2014

[…] a bit of Jack Halberstam’s incisive blog about this phenomenon from Bully Bloggers, the
blog site he shares with three other academics (which means you have to wade through a bit
of […]
16. Jack Halberstam’s Flying Circus: On postmodernism and the scapegoating of trans
women - July 7, 2014
[…] With mainstream discussion around trigger warnings circling the drain of bad faith and
broken ethics, Jack Halberstam’s article on the ma er was as inevitable as it is unhelpful. […]
17. Trans/plant/portation - July 7, 2014

[…] or wrote a readable deconstruction of language, politics, and identity. Instead,
Halberstam waded into the very tired “tranny” debate, and along the way, managed to
become the next Dan Savage, Tosh.0, Seth MacFarland of the LGBT […]
18. Jack Halberstam on Bully Bloggers | The Subversive Intellectual - July 7, 2014
[…] You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, […]
19. Transgression and humour | CMA Resistance ss2014 - July 8, 2014

20. Jack Halberstam and the Disappointing Lack of “Pulling the Trigger” Puns in this Very
Important Cultural Conversation | Unhand My Thesaurus - July 8, 2014
21. Trigger to fire | Technology as Nature - July 9, 2014

[…] above were inspired by this, though lately I’ve been pondering cultural shifts, their
frequent undetected celerity and then […]
22. Are Trigger Warnings for White People? (Guest Post by Kristina Meshelski) | Daily Nous
- July 9, 2014
[…] Kristina Meshelski, an assistant professor of philosophy at CSU Northridge, has kindly
authored the following guest post about the recent discussion of trigger warnings at Bully
Bloggers by Jack Halberstam (USC), “You Are Triggering Me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of
Harm, Danger, and Trauma.” […]
23. Wednesday Links! | Gerry Canavan - July 9, 2014
[…] Dialectics of the Trigger Warning […]
24. You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma - TRPWL
: TRPWL - July 10, 2014
[…] Continue reading at BullyBloggers… […]
25. “Why I Yelled at the Kara Walker Exhibit” | Sub.ver.sive Intellect--uals - July 10, 2014
[…] reading through Halberstam’s Bully Bloggers piece, “You are Triggering Me! The Neo-
liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma”, I have decided to revisit Nicholas Powers’
report on his experience at Kara Walker’s […]
26. Natalia Cecire’s “On the ‘neoliberal rhetoric of harm’ “ | Sub.ver.sive Intellect--uals - July
10, 2014
[…] discussion on Halberstam’s piece, here is Natalia Cecire’s rightful critique giving voice
to students and their own connection […]
27. Thought Dump: “You Are Triggering Me!” | The Politiconomist - July 11, 2014
[…] latest broadsiding of Social Justice that is making its way through my social circles is
Jack Halberstam’s “You Are Triggering Me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and
T…. I will be answering the underlying concerns of that are fueling the shares in a separate
post. […]
28. Do Trigger Warnings Change Anything? - Queerly Foward - July 13, 2014
[…] warnings” in higher education, recently reignited by Jack Halberstam’s viral blog post
“You Are Triggering Me: The Neo-liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger, and Trauma,” I can’t
help but worry that Halberstam, and I too for that ma er, are weighing in on an issue […]
29. Weekend Links, Vol. 44: Occupation is a Feminist Issue | Bluestockings Magazine - July
13, 2014
[…] Halberstam disses the use of trigger warnings because those darned millenials.[Bully
[…]
30. Trigger Warnings, Trauma, & a Politics of “Thick Life:” On Halberstam’s “You are
Triggering Me,” and Povinelli’s Empire of Love | WIT - July 14, 2014
[…] been thinking about Jack Halberstam’s brilliant and provocative piece on trigger
warnings quite a bit this past week, especially in light of the many comments it provoked—
which he aptly […]
31. Easily triggered? A social engineer’s view. - July 14, 2014

[…] the internet after cleaning out and tidying the lab table, and my a ention is drawn to
“You’re Triggering me!” – a clever and wi y post by the Bully Bloggers, with bonus points
for Monty Python […]
32. Combat! blog makes remarks, inaudible to internet : COMBAT! - July 14, 2014
[…] from unnecessary a achments, e.g. hygiene. While I continue my sense journey, how
about you read this controversial article about the rhetoric of trauma in contemporary
gender activism? The whole internet is made and/or […]
33. Trig Reciprocal Functions: I’m a Trans Woman Adjunct Prof and I Use Trigger Warnings |
aoifeschatology - July 14, 2014
[…] the subject, throwing my hands up in dismay at the fray, if not for a scholar I greatly
admire, Jack Halberstam, offering a much-discussed intervention into the […]
34. You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma | Women
Born Transsexual - July 16, 2014
[…] From BullyBloggers: h ps://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/you-are-
triggering-me-the-neo-liberal-rhetoric-of-harm… […]
35. Regarding “Generation Wars”: some reflections upon reading the recent Jack Halberstam
essay | Women Born Transsexual - July 21, 2014
[…] Halberstam recently published an essay called You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal
Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma, and it’s been making waves on the activist internets
over the last week. It felt like a bit of a […]
36. Trigger Warning: Capitalism | Creative Infrastructure - July 21, 2014

[…] of the best critiques of the practice are by sociologist (and my cousin) Laurie Essig,
another by Jack Halberstam, and this by Arlene Goldbard. While reading through these
critiques, I coincidentally happened to […]
37. Confessions of a Horrible Person: What I learned from Cards Against Humanity | Why
Mondays Are Cool - July 22, 2014
[…] to it. So why, then, do I love a game that I should hate? Because no one can ever keep up
with an ever-changing list of things that offend people. At any given moment, your existing
will offend at least three people and there’s nothing you […]
38. Joke Work and the ‘Other’ in Halberstam’s Critique of Trigger Warnings: Neoliberalism
and Leftist Disavowal of Ethics | Sexistentialism - July 22, 2014
[…] I want to situate a discussion of Jack Halberstam’s recent and controversial article, “You
Are Triggering Me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma“. Halberstam
offers a sweeping critique of the tendency in “young”, […]
39. Dal giardino di ZAM. Un dialogo tra Federico Zappino e Olivia Fiorilli - July 24, 2014
[…] recente, ha posto una questione simile nel diba ito interno al femminismo; altre anto di
recente J. Jack Halberstam ha denunciato alcune tonalità neoliberali del queer. E Cristina
Morini, Beatrice Busi e Simona de […]
40. Nel giardino di Zam – di Federico Zappino e Olivia Fiorilli | Quaderni di San Precario -
July 24, 2014
Morini, Beatrice Busi e Simona de […]
41. Dal giardino di ZAM — MilanoInMovimento - July 24, 2014

Morini, Beatrice Busi e Simona […]
42. The GLAAD Board’s “Tranny” Trouble: How Its Trans Takeover Is Reshaping LGBT
Politics / Queerty - July 24, 2014
[…] with Kahrl and Boylan assert that suppressing words we don’t like gives them more
power to harm. Dr. Jack Halberstam, Professor of English and Director of The Center for
Feminist Research at Unive…, wrote an excellent analysis of this rhetoric of harm, danger,
and trauma expressed by Boylan and […]
43. This Ain’t The Help? OITNB’s White Savior Industrial Complex Christina Belcher /
University of Southern California | Flow - August 31, 2014
[…] debate about “call out culture” originated with Jack Halberstam’s post on Bully
Bloggers, You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma.
Various writers have responded to Halberstam. […]
44. test | Flow - September 3, 2014

[…] debate about “call out culture” originated with Jack Halberstam’s post on Bully
Bloggers, You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma.
Various writers have responded to Halberstam. […]
45. Thoughts On: Effective Protests VS Throwing The Baby Out With The Bath Water |
FragMEANTz: Meaningful fragments of my life and imagination - September 3, 2014
[…] a change of topic; pot, fan fiction, zombies, Twilight, Burning Man, The Grateful Dead,
karaoke, trigger warnings, FetLife, Kombucha, the person they are smi en with, […]
46. Sarah Irving - September 6, 2014

[…] happy with talking about my own situation in this kind of environment is, sort of,
illustrated in this excellent post by Jack Halberstam on the “neo-liberal rhetoric of harm,
danger and trauma”. It describes a political situation in […]
47. Community Solidarity And Personal Responsibility | Ecstatic Revolution - September 17,
2014
[…] THIS! I want to plaster this everywhere. Seriously, I want to hug Jack Halberstam for
this writing: h ps://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/you-are-triggering-me-the-
neo-liberal-rhetoric-of-ha… […]
48. The Beat, The Pulse, and The Call | Sound and Queery - September 25, 2014
[…] I’ve been reflecting on in a different way since moving to Austin. The first is the
somewhat recent post from Jack Halberstam on Bully Bloggers about trigger warnings,
which, in the spirit of generosity […]
49. Civility Disobedience | Bully Bloggers - October 13, 2014

[…] an earlier blog on this site, Jack Halberstam explored “how a neoliberal rhetoric of
individual pain obscures the violent […]
50. Tense Conversations | From the President - October 27, 2014

[…] Halberstam, Jack. “You Are Triggering Me! The Neo-liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger
and Trauma.” Bully Bloggers. N.p., 5 July 2014. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.
<h ps://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/you-are-triggering-me-the-neo-liberal-
rhetoric-of-…. […]
51. Group Task 2 | #HashtagMC - November 18, 2014

[…] You are triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma […]
52. What, Why, When, Where, and How?: 5 Common Questions About Trigger Warnings
Answered — Everyday Feminism - January 8, 2015
[…] Thousands and thousands of words have been wri en about whether we should add a
handful of words at the beginning of our blog posts, articles, and Facebook statuses. […]
53. Wie sinnvoll sind Trigger-Warnungen in Veranstaltungen der Gender und Queer
Studies? | feministische studien - January 29, 2015
[…] einem viel diskutierten Text hat Jack Halberstam auf dem queeren Blog Bully Bloggers
die Notwendigkeit von Trigger-Warnungen in […]
54. 3620 Podcast | Annenberg School for Communication - February 2, 2015

[…] Jack Halberstam, “You are Triggering Me…” […]
55. SKOK’s Queer Art of (Political) Protest. | International Student Blog - March 6, 2015
[…] makes you question your assumptions about a variety of topics. From explaining his
opposition to trigger warnings (a increasingly common practice in classrooms in the U.S. at
least, where instructors forewarn […]
56. Arriving at the Milestone – Ph.D. from U of Chicago! | Yuan-Chen Li ‧ 李元貞 - May 25,
2015
[…] Monk and the Philosopher,” reading sincerely about the younger generation’s painful
triggers in this post-traumatic culture, and thought about the next project. Stay Connected! I
will keep […]
57. Who Gets to Feel their Feels? On the power and politics of academic emotions | Clare
Forstie - May 29, 2015
[…] he participated in that culture. What do we actually do, in the classroom? Kipnis’ and, in
an earlier post about trigger warnings, Jack Halberstam’s arguments suggest that we should
essentially tell both students that […]
58. More like interSEXYnality, AMIRITE? | samquigley - May 31, 2015

[…] and then read this very good thing on trigger […]
59. Is That a “Read"? The Contentious Politics of Drag Performance | JSTOR Daily - June 8,
2015
[…] to the backlash has ensued, with prominent transgender critics like Justin Vivian Bond
and Jack Halberstam balking at activists’ excessive policing of language (also in the use of
the word “tranny” […]
60. Série de l’été : Le Vendredi, on zone sur les Internets. Episode 1. | Le Lancer de Galaxie du
Dentifrice - July 3, 2015
[…] Le tweet de l’apocalypse (le 10è va vous étonner) Le lynchage, une vieille histoire n’est-
ce pas. Un contrepoint intéressant d’un prof trans sur la rhétorique de la souffrance. […]
Bloggers | existentialwight - July 6, 2015
rhetoric-of-har… […]
62. The Fashion Offensive. #1: FUCK OFF - CULTURE ON THE OFFENSIVE - August 2, 2015
[…] winds up policing the very group that it claims to speak for. Queer theorist Jack
Halberstem illustrates the problems of this new […]
63. Guest post: People uncritically generalizing their personal experience - August 5, 2015
[…] was just reminded of this excellent article from a year ago (looking at some of the
theoretical underpinnings/implications of the rise of use of […]
64. the trigger warning I'm pu ing in my syllabus | - August 19, 2015
[…] of academics and teachers think trigger warnings in college classrooms signal the
decline of deep, authentic inquiry into complex social issues. They believe trigger warnings
are a symbol of the Dumbing Down of the […]
65. Trigger Warnings and the Adult Conversation About Them | Proof of Burden - August 20,
2015
[…] and academia. This does not include Laura Kipnis (Freud justifies sleeping with my
students), Jack Halberstadt (Freud justifies me ignoring intersectionality organizing), the
authors of the aforementioned […]
66. My trigger-warning dilemma - December 2, 2015

[…] in a particular way. Always young, mostly women. Very often a student a acking a
professor, always “aggrieved” or upset, often displaying signs of emotional instability or
hysteria. These trigger-victims almost […]
67. Why I No Longer Use Trigger Warnings - cet mohamed moore - December 15, 2015
[…] only this year that I’ve disavowed them as a rule. It took for Bryant Cross to share this
post on the Bully Bloggers’ site to enumerate […]
68. Somewhere in the Blogosphere: Digital Dieting and Emerging Identity – Heather's Blog -
January 23, 2016
[…] yet this strange addiction on still wanting to know more. In other words, I started to
suffer from FOMO if I wasn’t online. Therefore, I needed to put some barriers in place to
eliminate some of the […]
69. Can the Triggered Generation Speak? – Lisa Diedrich - August 26, 2016
[…] to the next. In general, then, I agree with one of Jack Halberstam’s main points in his
blog “You are Triggering Me!” and in the related presentation he gave at Stony Brook in fall
2014: that we can’t predict what […]
70. The Real Danger of Trigger Warnings: A Survivor’s Perspective – Mary - September 23,
2016
[…] worry that trigger warnings are just excuses to avoid discomfort, hurt feelings or
difficult subjects. They worry such warnings suppress free speech in […]
71. Opposition To “Trigger Warnings” Reinforces The Status Quo | Conditionally Accepted -
October 18, 2016
[…] we pause for a moment on the trigger warning debates? Even well-intentioned liberal
professors who have taken issue with these warnings are merely echoing the larger
conservative […]
72. Civility Disobedience | AMST 286: Queer Activism and Radical Scholarship - October 26,
2016
[…] an earlier blog on this site, Jack Halberstam explored “how a neoliberal rhetoric of
individual pain obscures the violent […]
73. The Fashion Offensive: #1. FUCK OFF – Exploding Appendix - December 5, 2016
[…] winds up policing the very group that it claims to speak for. Queer theorist Jack
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BULLY BLOGGERS

You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal

(h ps://bullybloggers.ﬁles.wordpress.com/2014/07/feminist_humor_ .jpg)Debates among

(h ps://bullybloggers.ﬁles.wordpress.com/2014/07/k5715.gif)Fifteen to twenty years ago, books

(h ps://bullybloggers.ﬁles.wordpress.com/2014/07/safespace.jpg)Hanhardt’s Lambda Literary

COMMENTS 369 Comments

369 Responses to “You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal

Kat July 5, 2014 at 12:51 pm #

Will She erly July 7, 2014 at 12:17 am #

hagsdemesne February 4, 2018 at 8:56 pm #

For me, compassion is needed here. We activists understand oppression because we

Koko July 7, 2014 at 2:19 pm #

Pratibha Parmar July 5, 2014 at 3:00 pm #

KNE July 6, 2014 at 1:42 am #

quendergeer July 6, 2014 at 2:54 am #

Lilee July 6, 2014 at 11:43 am #

S July 6, 2014 at 11:42 am #

Trigger Happy July 5, 2014 at 7:18 pm #

TL;DR – Triggering is short for ‘triggering a panic a ack or other ﬁght-or-ﬂight

Ma July 5, 2014 at 10:12 pm #

will July 6, 2014 at 5:42 am #

Silver H. August 16, 2014 at 3:17 pm #

indiyesreally July 7, 2014 at 11:15 pm #

Twitter induced Shell Shock

This is not healthy or productive.

One of those traumatized whiners July 6, 2014 at 5:49 pm #

elle July 10, 2014 at 3:42 am #

jamesworrad July 5, 2014 at 8:55 pm #

Major James Worrad (Mrs)

Alex July 11, 2014 at 11:26 am #

marcos July 5, 2014 at 9:02 pm #

ggrkl July 5, 2014 at 11:44 pm #

brynkelly July 5, 2014 at 9:15 pm #

2) Much of your arguments about the professionalization of “safety” and “safer

3) #dontlucidturndownforwhat? as the kids say.

bullybloggers July 5, 2014 at 9:23 pm #

brynkelly July 5, 2014 at 9:45 pm #

marcos July 6, 2014 at 2:20 pm #

betaﬁve July 8, 2014 at 12:31 am #

betaﬁve July 8, 2014 at 12:36 am #

Angry at the claim to an identity, a request for space, an appeal to protection?

Devin Ens July 6, 2014 at 3:13 am #

not the biologist July 6, 2014 at 1:28 pm #

So if there is one group with a substantial portion of members reporting experience of

Liberty Mahalakshmi July 6, 2014 at 2:04 pm #

liamandthebees July 6, 2014 at 3:21 pm #

Lilee July 6, 2014 at 6:17 pm #

marcos July 6, 2014 at 2:25 pm #

leatherargento September 14, 2014 at 6:50 pm #

betaﬁve July 8, 2014 at 12:37 am #

JakeD July 14, 2014 at 8:55 pm #

Tracey Yeadon-Lee July 6, 2014 at 12:19 pm #

*Is* this a fact?

Neo-liberalism seeks market-based (or “social choice theory”-based) solutions to

I say all this as an opponent of neo-liberalism, which like libertarianism is fundamentally

Sorry for the tangent. I won’t follow up on this, promise!

Flufftronix (@flufftronix) July 6, 2014 at 12:59 pm #

sharingempathy July 6, 2014 at 6:03 pm #

Just some thoughts.

So, the older generation isn’t hopeless, either. THANK YOU!

Of course, such eﬀorts were imperfect but by forwarding compassion in place of

betaﬁve July 8, 2014 at 5:51 pm #

chiMaxx July 8, 2014 at 7:21 pm #

Is this a fact?