I believe the discussion about trigger warnings is being had in bad faith. I believe it is being used as a stand-in to falsely imply a terrifying leftist censoriousness, by people who don't understand where the term comes from and don't want to. As Soraya Chemaly notes at 'The Huffington Post', stern dismissal of trigger warnings has become a proxy for dismissing women, people of colour, queer people and trauma survivors as readers. It is saying that our experiences do not matter - that we should calm down and 'grow a thicker skin'. It says that any attempt to acknowledge or accommodate readers with difficult experiences is tantamount to Stalinism. Someone is being told to shut up here, but it's not F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Laurie Penny, Bitch Doctrine
