Another question for everyone: how do you teach yourself to recognize problematic behavior from all sources?

Video of PM Mark Carney 🇨🇦 as an exercise.

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Many of us can spot when someone is almost expressing harmful beliefs or behaviors.

Take these examples:

* "I don't mean to be Y, but..."
* "I'm not a Y! Some of my best friends are Y' !"

These follow a familiar pattern: denying affiliation with a harmful group while expressing that group’s core beliefs.

We often catch this when it's obvious, but can we still recognize the pattern when the cues are more subtle or spread over time? What if someone skips the preface and just shares the beliefs—can you tell which group they likely align with?

Let's take a look at Mark Carney's interview from about a week ago. I'm going to need you to listen and then pause at 12 seconds precisely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VESf23utZv0

The focus isn't Carney, so his answer isn't (yet) relevant to this exercise.

This exercise focuses on you, the reader.

You are now paused at the question. If you saw this framing in text or in person, do you, right now and hopefully without listening prior, know that the asker is asking about trans women?

When you answer:

* Are you ready to answer knowing this is about trans women?

- or -

* Will you answer as if this question is About Gender? That is to say, you aren't sure What This Is About, so you'll just Answer The Question **As Asked**.

If you don't know that this question is about trans women: this is ok! And now is a great time to learn to contextualize questions.

All information is contextualized, and this is no different. Current rhetoric has people in the press, specifically, speaking about trans women in a particular way. So this isn't A Question About Gender, this is a Press Person's Question About Gender.

If you know how The Press ask about gender, and how to recognize the different subtle ways that trans exclusive vs trans inclusive press tee up their questions, you will know that this is contextualized as:

* A question about gender
* By a person in the press
* And by phrasing, by a trans exclusive member of the press.

Even in 12 seconds, we know all three of these things.

(Part 1 of 2, alas, my posts are long.)

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