Let’s talk about venting and boundaries, especially in the context of social justice.
There’s a place for venting negative feelings about oppression. That venting doesn’t have to be 100% correct. It’s okay to be like “I hate straight/white/cis/male/etc people” on occasion when frustration with oppression is getting you down without specifying “not ALL x majority group”. Venting is going to be messy sometimes. That’s okay.
But if there are no boundaries or limits to your venting, THAT will be harmful to yourself, others, and any social movement you try to represent. Not every single place, time, and context is going to be an appropriate space for venting.
If you are running a social justice or minority focused space of any kind, you need to have clear guidelines around venting and when it is/isn’t appropriate with your space or your space will likely turn toxic and unhealthy. People can use supposed “venting” as a weapon to harm and silence others.
If a trans man is talking about his experience with oppression and someone responds with how he sucks because he’s a man and men suck? That’s not okay. That’s using the excuse of venting to silence a marginalized person discussing their oppression. The same is true for black, Asian, disabled, gay, mixed race, bi, ANY marginalized men. I use this as an example because women are numerically the largest oppressed group globally so it can often come up, but there’s many other examples. Venting about white people can even be used to silence women and LGBTQ+ people depending on the specific context (like complaining about “white girls” or “white gays” doing stereotypically feminine things that are entirely harmless).
Venting about “straight” or “het” people can be used to silence and exclude aro, ace, trans, intersex, and even bisexual people depending on context. It can also be used to dismiss and silence non-white people and discussions around interracial relationships. Venting about “cis” people can be used to silence and exclude intersex people. The diversity of the LBGTQ+ community can make this tactic all too common.
Even if you’re not trying to hurt someone, if you don’t have separate spaces or clear boundaries on your venting, then you will likely hurt someone. If a straight intersex person constantly hears about how straight people suck in LGBTQ+ spaces, they’re going to feel hurt and excluded even if that wasn’t the intent. If you expect queer men to be totally fine with having to randomly, arbitrarily hear how much they suck for being men in queer spaces, then you’re making queer spaces unsafe for queer men.
There can be vent spaces, vent blogs, personal spaces, etc that are there for venting about majority groups. It’s healthy for outlets for anger to exist. But if a social justice space expects some members to always be ready and willing to become an outlet for venting and anger with no boundaries or limits because those members have some kind of privileged identity, then that’s not healthy or reasonable. It’s not okay, and it often ignores intersectionality and the fact that people can embody marginalized and privileged identities at the same time.
It’s time to get more nuanced about venting in social justice spaces. Yes, oppressed people need and deserve space for venting. No, it is not always reasonable, healthy, or okay to vent in every single context.
I know that there’s a lot of complexity to talk about here, but I think we need to talk about it. Because “venting” has become a tool for dismantling intersectionality, lateral oppression, and even plain old regular oppression in too many progressive spaces.
