
This, I think, is how you get a Laci Green — a social justice celebrity with a lot of social capital who experienced some of the relationally unpleasant aspects of the movement — scrutiny, hyper-criticality, mob mentality — and then threw up her hands and took a long, sliding step to the right. As a pretty white, young, cisgender woman, she and her desire for “open dialogue” were welcomed with open arms (duh) by the TERFs and alt-righters of the Internet.
And the problem with the calls for “freedom of speech,” “collegiate debate,” and “open dialogue” that come from such liberals is that “open dialogue,” usually turns out to be a platform for regressives and trolls on the right, rather than an invitation to those whose voices are shut out of both the left and the right. Here again, I think of women like my grandmother.