Why I give a shit about 'Social Justice Warriors'

Lots of people doubt that 'SJWs' are an issue, and consider the label a strawman. For a lot of people the issue is just 'some random internet argument that won't go away'. There are plenty of reasons to consider the 'social justice warrior' (or, as I wish they had been termed 'social justice bullies') mentality an issue. They are hypocritical, misleading, and harassers, but seem to be able to have their voices heard in the liberal media, they lead groups like feminists astray (often by misleading them with easily debunked stats), and they are divisive, harassing anyone who doesn't agree with them. They weaken the overall push towards a more equal society, and they weaken the liberal movement, allowing those who would trample over minorities and individuals to gain power as we are divided. They even seem happy to co-operate with right wing groups over issues like censoring sex and violence in video games, etc.

There are plenty of good reasons to hate the 'SJB's but that's not what I'm going to talk about. Plenty of people talk about the good reasons politically to try to persuade them to act in a better way. I want to talk about my personal experience with them. People think this is an online argument only - but 'SJB's have affected my real life for the worse.

I am gay, and in the closet (hence the good old anon account). Most of my friends know, but given what my family have said about 'the gays' and their 'agenda', I'm reluctant to come out publicly. I also have issues at work with this sort of thing (plenty of homophobes in my office for whatever reason - and yes, I am working on quitting, just need to save up more dough). Life has been rough over the past few years but I have always loved gaming. It was a godsend when Gaymer groups started popping up. I joined one on Facebook (after making sure I hid my bits of profile), and everything was going well. It was good to for once be able to just kind of be publicly gay (having my real name in the group) - even 99% of discussions were about upcoming games. Hard to explain, I dunno.

For most of the time, the worst part of being in the group was just finding reasons to ignore family and co-worker's friend requests. The discussions were fun, we had get-togethers on some weekends, everyone got along - but then the admin (a college student) mentioned that he wanted to affiliate us with his on campus 'feminist society' or whatever. Most people were fine with it for as far as we were concerned, feminists were allies. Over the next week a few of his 'feminist' friends (tentatively calling them that because that's how they identified themselves, not trying to drag anti-feminism into this) joined the group. It wasn't a huge issue - I don't believe we had a rule at that point that meant that every member HAD to be a gay or lesbian, and even if we did, how do you even police that.

From that point, the group kind of changed - it was less about gaming, more about politics - especially gaming politics, like "Does Assassin's Creed have enough female protagonists", and "How great is Feminist Frequency" or whatever. A few original members started engaging less in the group and it sucked a bit but I felt I needed the group so I persisted. A friend of mine from from the next state (who I met over WoW, which is why he joined) started just posting "How is this relevant to queer gaming?" on heaps of the posts (usually the less game related ones) and got a warning from the admin - even though it was a fair question. The group used to be about gaming and it just got really muddled into the politics. Maybe the admin framed it as more of a 'LGBTIQA+ rights' group who 'happened to game' rather than what it was - a group for gamers who happened to be homosexual.

Over time I think everyone just got more agitated. We tried to talk to the admin and make meta posts on the group trying to discuss what should/shouldn't be on the group but the discussions generally just got heated and never made headways. Eventually my WoW friend got kicked (being a more glorious asshole than I am) for just blasting one of the feminists asking her "Are you even gay? Because this group is for gay people not for fat white chicks" when she posted a link to the thing where Rose McGowan said that gays were really misogynistic (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/rose-mcgowan-attacks-lgbt-community-for-failing-to-campaign-for-feminism-gay-men-are-more-9841873.html) with the post title "We probably need to talk about this, I think some people here need to try to be stronger feminist allies" or something along those lines.

After that I stayed around for a while - again, I thought I needed the group for support, even as it was turning sour. Even though I was being blasted by shit about "how misandry wouldn't matter even if it did exist" (Jessica Valenti), and how awful "white men" are. I responded negatively to a piece arguing that "homophobia is just misogyny in disguise" - purely on my personal experiences. I think the harshest thing I said was that it was "narrow minded bullshit", and that earned me a warning. After that I was getting name dropped in the group (if a 'feminist' though I would disagree with something they say, they would tag me in it daring me to argue with them - basically the equivalent of . replying on twitter) and I started getting personal threatening messages from what I would consider to be one of the more unhinged feminists that had joined the group.

I ended up leaving the group and for a month or so my life just felt shittier. It wasn't just the loss of a support network that in hindsight, I was probably clinging onto too hard, but it was also just that feeling of being attacked. The constant callouts and shit make you feel like everyone has a lower opinion of you and that you're an outcast. It was also just so hypocritical. They all pretended that they were fighting for gay rights, but were perfectly fine will harassing them out of a Gaymer group. They didn't have any issues speaking over me when I was talking about my experiences when it contradicted their shitty ass opinions.

Now, you may think that this is "just one example" and I was just "unfortunate" to "run into the crazies" - but I've heard of pretty much the same thing happening elsewhere - even to a relative in Australia whose experiences seemed to mirror mine almost exactly, though for him it wasn't 'feminists' joining the group, but that they LGBTIQA+ community just started witch hunting each other. The social justice incursion into gaming has been a fucking awful thing for Gaymer groups globally, it seems.

Anyway, I hope that brings the issue into the real world for some people. For some of us it isn't 'just an online thing'. It affects our real lives. As said - there are plenty of great reasons to hate the 'social justice bullies', reasons that extend past just the impact on a single person, but sometimes you need a personalized touch to empathize with these issues I guess.