This, too, is a trashed bathroom; young queer people living through hell and having precious little control over their circumstances or the world in which they exist can affect something by using the language of social justice as a cudgel on their would-be allies, as well as getting a brief feeling of power over someone else by doing it.

This sort of thing tends to happen subconsciously. You don't say to yourself, "I'm feeling powerless and therefore I will lash out at the one thing I can control." You just feel angry and frustrated in ways you can't necessarily describe and then for no apparent reason you see someone do something that can be construed as problematic if you squint at it sideways and have an overwhelming impulse to DO SOMETHING about it. You don't know where that impulse comes from, you just know that giving in to it feels good. It feels righteous. You are doing the right thing and that's why it feels good. Right?

That's why it's so easy to fall into this sort of behavior. It doesn't feel like you're trying to regain a sense of control over your own life. It feels like you are doing something righteous and justified and correct, and anyone who says otherwise is probably a bad person. And the more often this happens, the more times you call someone out over some bullshit, the more righteous it feels! And the more "Bad People" start crawling out of the woodwork to attack you (defending the people you've attacked and trying to explain why you're mistaken), the more targets you have.

In the end it leads to increasing isolation. You wind up being pulled into hateful groups like terfs who see you as an easy target. They reassure you that yes, you are doing the right thing, those people are bad. We understand and support you! Join us!

Eventually, the only way you know to feel good is to attack others, but in your mind, it feels good because you're doing good, you're making the world better, you're protecting someone or something. You're fighting against the Bad Guys.

And all the while you're cutting yourself off from your own community. You're not healing, you're not regaining control over your life, you're not making the world a better place. You're just hurting the people who are on your side.

You would not believe how many people have reblogged this post with tags that basically say "ummmm sounds like the people who do this are Bad People and you should be a Good Person by not doing this. I'm a Good Person and would never do this."