~Mixing...~

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

In middle school biology, we did an experiment. We were given yams, which we would sprout in cups of water. We then had to make hypotheses about how the yams would grow, based on descriptions of yam plants in our books, and make notes of our observations as they grew.

Here’s what was supposed to happen: we were supposed to see that the actual growth of the plant did not resemble our hypotheses. We were then supposed to figure out that these were, in fact, sweet potatoes.

What actually happened was that every single student in every single class lied in their notes so that their observations perfectly matched their hypotheses. See, everyone assumed the mismatch meant they had done something wrong in the process of growing the plant or that they had misunderstood the dichotomous key or the plant identification terminology. And, thanks to the wonders of a public school education, everyone assumed the wrong results would get us a failing grade. We were trying to pass. We didn’t want to get bitched out by the teacher. Curiosity, learning, science - that had nothing to do with why we were sitting in that classroom. So we all lied.

The teacher was furious. She tried to fail every student, but the administration stepped in and told her she wasn’t allowed to because a 100% fail rate is recognized as a failure of the teacher, not the class. It wasn’t even her fault, really, though her being a notorious hard-ass didn’t help. It was a failure of the entire educational system.

I means it's honestly unlikely they did x, y, and/or z. Most call out posts are just bullshit lies or so taken out of context that they're just as fraudulent as a bullshit lie.

However, if they did? A callout post is useless. It's utterly pointless.

A callout post does nothing but:

Isolate the supposed perpetrator, making it impossible for them to stay in a community that would otherwise be able to go "Hey bro/sis/sib, that was fucked, let's talk about it and fix it".

Puts a spotlight on the possible victim that prevents them from recovery or healing.

Creates drama that creates damage for all parties.

And that's if their was any truth in the post.

A callout post that's just a bunch of garbage though? That:

Isolates the victim of the slander, leaving them volunrable to attacks and harassment

Feeds into transphobia both generalized and specific to the victim of slander

Creates infighting, gatekeeping, and policement of the community

Often forces people who had nothing to do with the initial drama to take part in a now ever delevoping drama, which creates more callout posts, more slander, more harrasment, and more attacks on community members. Most often effecting the most marginalized members of out community.

Forces people to view content that is often triggering and demands that they make a moral statement about it, while trying to process or cope with the content.

Creates room for Terfs, tehms, radfems, and transphobes of all brands, to stick their ugly heads in and go "see, I was right about the trans cult, do you see what monsters they are".

"I want to kiss a girl and maybe date her"

-anonymous