We have to stop canceling each other so we can save each other’s lives.

Shifting to a new paradigm where we all share responsibility for mutual growth

My book, Unsolicited Advice: A Consent Educator's (Canceled) Memoir, is available only on Substack and starts here.

What would you like to ask a consent educator? Submit your questions here and I’ll answer them on this Substack.

Applications are open for my Consent-Based Teaching Artist Program!

My musical, SQUIRM: A True Story, is at Hollywood Fringe! Listen to the album here.

Once upon a time, cancelation was about removing people from positions of systemic and institutional power where they were bolstered and protected by those institutions so that they could continue to perpetuate abuses of power, typically sexual in nature, while those institutions had actively tried to silence their accusers. And then, something changed. We saw it go from serial abusers like Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer, and then Louis CK and others, to people like Aziz Ansari, which was where many people started to draw a line, thinking we’d gone too far.

But at some point, we (by which I mean activists, leftists, organizers, millennials, blue-haired pansexuals named Soap) stopped giving people the benefit of the doubt and started assuming the absolute worst. We stopped believing people could grow and learn and started reducing them to the worst thing they’ve ever said or done, but never wanted to be held to that standard ourselves because of course we are capable of change but those people are evil. We stopped being able to distinguish malice from ignorance, and decided we could only handle conflict by publicly stoning people and denying their humanity instead of learning to navigate interpersonal conflict amongst ourselves.

Almost exactly a year ago, I lost my book deal because someone from within my own community who wrote to my editor with second or third hand information, twisted wildly by ignorance and a sense of saviorism to get my deal canceled. They were successful. A few weeks later, I released this piece on Substack called, “The People Who Will Cancel You Agree with 99 out of 100 Things You Say.” In the year since, I’ve seen a shift away from Cancel Culture, one I hope is here to stay, as I encounter more and more people sick of the death grip they have to have around their throat lest they use the wrong word or don’t show up superhumanly perfect in Leftist activist spaces or on social media, or even just with their friends. Thank goodness.

As I’ve prioritized connection, joy, and vulnerability, I’ve had to learn to be more patient and more tolerant of my own activation as I seek to build bridges with people who are different from me. I hope more of us will prioritize building these bridges, and deprioritize finding the one, single “right” way to speak, act, and be. I think these bridges are the seeds of real change, as I reach beyond my immediate community and see perspectives that are different from my own. I learn to hold those perspectives and respect them, even when I disagree with them.

I wasn’t always there. I, like many trans and nonbinary people (or anyone who experiences a moment or period [or moments or periods] of radicalization), went through something of a mental, emotional, intellectual puberty. When I first realized that they/them pronouns felt more fitting for me (long after I knew I was nonbinary and was open about it), I found myself letting go of a lot of relationships or not wanting to be around people who couldn’t use these pronouns for me with deftness and ease. I was amongst friends who did the same, labeling anyone who argued about grammar or confusion or who talked about their own struggle with the new language to be transphobic. Surrounded by people who were quick to cut out friends and family (sounds a little cult-y, eh?), quick to talk shit about people they knew for a linguistic slip, I held hard lines with my own friends, family, and people I dated, determining quickly who was allowed in and who had to stay out. This resulted in isolation, lost connections, and an echo-ier echo chamber everyday.

What shook me out of it? Well, it’s not so clear. I began to see that the way what you say, where you go, who you’re friends with, etc. is policed in activist spaces and online as antithetical to the mission of inclusivity of some of not just the most marginalized, but the very people these groups claim to want to support and fight for: people who’ve been incarcerated, didn’t have access to higher education, and the working class. I see a lot of care and energy going into content and events that are increasingly insular and exclusionary to those who don’t have the “right” lingo. I’ve gone to events that beat you over the head with a land acknowledgement without any tangible support for indigenous peoples or the Land Back movement; events that use terminology like ‘safe space’ but kick out anyone who isn’t familiar with the proper terminology around trans identity (which, by the way, includes a lot of not-yet or newly-out trans people!!!). Perfectionism is valued over vulnerability; the rules are valued over learning and sharing. In other words, there is little to no grace.

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Nicolas de Stael