We also need to acknowledge the issue that so much of our culture has been corrupted by bad faith actors and their equally in bad faith questions, so that it can be difficult to tell when someone is simply curious in “good faith”! Or someone who really is just trying to know or understand something.

As a librarian I’ve been taught to take peoples questions at face value, but I’ve also been blindsided by people asking questions as a “gotcha”, and it’s an horrible feeling. Some of the defensiveness we see is young people reacting to constantly being given these questions by people your friends age. (I’m trying to understand why they react the way they do, not excuse it.)

I saw someone on Twitter who said that we all have gotten into the habit of carefully explaining our statements and questions everywhere, so there can be no misunderstanding of what was said because of the many people who willfully misconstrue the things you say on social media!