There&#x27;s a stark difference between what people who dislike the concept of &quot;safe space&quot; think a &quot;safe space&quot; is and what a &quot;safe space&quot; actually is.<p>A &quot;safe space&quot; is a place where you know you aren&#x27;t going to be singled out and harmed (verbally or physically) by someone telling you that you&#x27;re a queer faggot and deserve to die.<p>A &quot;safe space&quot; is a place where people can discuss the actual issues of hatred, bigotry and violence without fear of reprise for being the hated, the attacked, the marginalized.<p>There&#x27;s a stark difference between &quot;This isn&#x27;t a place for saying hurtful things; this is a place for talking about why saying those things are hurtful. That&#x27;s why we&#x27;re not letting you in here while you continue to marginalize the oppressed. Let&#x27;s talk about why you think the oppressed should be marginalized instead.&quot;<p>All the anti-safe-space discussion on Hacker News lately is truly, horribly, fucking disgustingly indicative of the inherent sexism and flat-out hatred that worms its way through developer culture.<p>They are absofuckinglutely not cudgels of fear. And people who claim they are need to take a real fucking hard look at themselves and their views on those who are verbally bullied, physically attacked, raped, and murdered for being who they fucking are.