I don't think you understand the issue. You see them as weak because they don't fit into your standard of "tough".

Okay. Let's take soldiers. A common problem among combat PTSD sufferers is that they are triggered by explosions. Now. No one is going to stand up and tell a soldier who had his legs blown up by an IED that he is a fainting nancy. His trauma is so real that we cannot understand it but we recognise it as an ultimate sacrifice. We may not understand what he went through but we can get that he fears explosions because of bad memories of his injuries.

Now imagine a party. A birthday party in a McDonalds. You see a child running around with a balloon, what do you feel? Happy? Sad? Amused?

That vet feels apprehension. Because the balloon can explode. It's the same at fireworks events. The man who went to Iraq and who walked willingly into gun fights is scared of balloons. Does that mean he is weak?

So now he cannot avoid these events when they come to him. Let's say he lives next to a large public park where they set off fireworks on New Year's Day/Guy Fawkes/Diwali/Chinese New Year/Local Football Club Victories. Those explosions to him are very grating and very understandable. He can't demand they stop.

What he can ask is that HIS birthday parties are bereft of balloons and that people not set fireworks off in his vicinity. That's a safe space.

Nor is that the appropriate time to bring up a socio-political examination of the war in Iraq/Afghanistan. Anyone who did this would be regarded as a fucking twat of the highest order and who deserves a quick kick in the shins.

Not everyone's trauma is the same. Not everyone's experiences are the same of that trauma. There are soldiers who went blind and kept fighting. Imagine telling the guy who only lost a leg (pfft! Modern prosthesis are good you know!) that Robert Henry Cain fought despite being blinded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Cain). It doesn't help and it turns trauma into a "Oh yeah? But my father has a black belt in No-Can-Do and Origami and can bench press a house" where we have to go find the most traumatised person and anyone else doesn't have any excuses.

You think it's censoring information and the right for you to burst balloons but in reality it's just you not being considerate of another person's feelings. It's just easier to take on Gays, Bullied Kids, Women, Sexual Abuse Victims, People of Colour than soldiers who were injured. Sure, you can make a mistake. Let's say you run a surprise birthday for the Veteran up there and part of the surprise is to burst a balloon containing glitter. If you didn't know about his issue, it's a lack of information that lead you to be insensitive. He suffers but intent allows you to say sorry. Imagine if you did that in person? What sort of man would you be.

But it is the same principle.

And some of us don't require the same help for our traumas. I routinely deal with dead people as a doctor out in India. I see things that make /r/WTF look like a kiddie pool. I have seen wounds so badly cared for that maggots were living INSIDE the person. I have seen people burned alive. I have seen poison and noose and the like. And I haven't broke down. I have never lost a single night of sleep on the people who have died while I worked. There are some people who can't even draw blood and who feel uncomfortable when they watch us putting IV cannula in. I have worked on cadavers during training that were not refrigerated for a week in the Indian sun. I have smelled things that people have lost their lunch over and then gone and HAD lunch.

But I don't mock those who cannot do the above. When the 6ft 2 soldier feels faint at the sight and smell of fournier's gangrene, I am calmly cleaning the damn thing. When a the odour of myasis drives away even the most strong individuals, the person left standing is the 5ft 11 tubby bald doctor.

I don't mock them, not everyone has the same tolerance. I wanted to be a doctor. This is what I do for a living. I live in a place where you are still expected to kill your own chickens and mutton. To me things like watching people be really squeamish are amusing, but I wouldn't force them to do something outside their comfort zone. Mainly cause it is polite but partly because if someone faints I end up having to take care of one more person.

Safe spaces in general are there to discuss a variety of things and experiences where people have a shared experience.

In this case? I am going to assume a bunch of people wanted to watch a movie about the experiences of people of colour with regards to the white majority without having to go back and explain why apartheid was such a terrible thing and how this is different.

Also? It's the Spectator. Don't go outside! It's full of blacks, queers and spaniards! If only we could whip people, hang paedophiles and teach our children to operate guns then everything would be Empire again...