Safe Spaces

Quick note before the post proper: I do have an analysis of The World Inside in the works, but it’s proving rather troublesome to tame into coherence. For now, this post.
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I regularly see people declaring that somewhere or other is a “safe space”. So let’s pick this concept apart, and see just how easy or hard it is to create a safe space.
What is a “Safe Space”? The idea behind it is simple – a place where someone (usually of a minority group, though not necessarily) can write, talk, discuss their beliefs without any mockery, without trolls, and without a risk of them being offended (or in some cases distressed – known as triggered) by content within the area. For example, a Safe Space for a Homosexual person would be a space where you aren’t condemned for being homosexual. You won’t be mocked with homophobic slurs. Such a person can talk frankly about their experience. A transgender person meanwhile would have a space where they won’t be called and number of the transphobic slurs, nor would they be confronted with such slurs unexpectedly.
Sometimes you see people claiming that a particular tumblr tag is a “safe space” and that people should keep their hate out of the “transgender” tag, for example. This, is a futile request. The nature of tagging (on most sites, including tumblr) is that tags are public and unmoderated (beyond generic site-level moderation). Such tags will naturally be used by anyone who wishes too. And whilst sites may have “community guidelines” and so forth, against homophobic material etc, such policies tend to rely on user-reporting, and notably tend not to be as strict in their moderation as safe-spaces require.
Another angle is for example the /r/lgbt subreddit, which claims itself as a safe-space for any and all gender, sexual and romantic minorities, and it does work. Kind of. Reddit provides subreddit moderators (sub-reddits are essentially a forum board) with tools to remove any posts they wish. And this subreddit in particular has very pro-active moderators ensuring that any (even slightly) anti-lgbt material is removed quickly. So they have a safe space. Great. except, as is common in the case of highly active moderators, anything that doesn’t fit with their world-view is also removed. As such it creates a community that is perceived to be ‘all on the same page’. Even posts that aren’t anti-lgbt, but question, for example the ever expanding alphabet soup are removed.
Moving into the real world, a “safe space” tends to be a meeting area where there are people in authority, with the power to remove people from the space – such as University LGBT societies. These tend to be less prone to the ‘heavy-handedness’ of internet community moderation – by virtue of the fact that without the online disinhibition effect (Something I learned a great deal about for a University coursework) the number of trolls and “extreme” views tend to be minimised.
That said, online “safe spaces” are needed – providing people who experience homophobia, transphobia, and even things such as sexual assault or have attempted suicide, an area where they can pseudonymously communicate with others in the same boat is vital. It encourages the community to connect, to network, and thus to become stronger. And it insulates them from the problems that they face elsewhere in life (sometimes frighteningly regularly).
Safe Spaces need to be actively moderated, otherwise they are impossible to maintain. But it is important to recognise that this moderation can go too far, which can cause a narrowing world-view and even rejection, not acceptance, from the wider society (or even from within the same minority group – see the split from /r/lgbt to /r/ainbow).