1/ Growing up I thought the world was made up of good people and bad people

I now understand the world is made of complicated people with competing interests, living within systems and structures that are perfectly designed to get the results they get

2/ I'm a brown-skinned, South Asian, male obstetrician who works on issues at the intersection of gender equity, reproductive justice and structural racism.

Sometimes people don’t like the words I use, sometimes they don’t like my views, sometimes they just don’t like my face

3/ For years my social media mentions have been littered by racist, misogynist, xenophobic, transphobic, anti-choice comments

They are upsetting but much easier to ignore when I know those people don’t share my interests

4/ Lately I’ve been trolled because of my gender and race by those who do share the same interests, by colleagues in a common progressive cause

Why? They believe only those with a different identity from mine should have the positions and platforms to pursue my work.

5/ Purity tests based on personal identity are illiberal and dangerous.

Progress requires opening hearts and minds across a spectrum of lived experiences. And it requires not using power to troll--or even worse--silence people we disagree with.

6/ Disagreement is uncomfortable because it entails judgement.

Hundreds of people will read these tweets. Most will actually agree but few will “like” or retweet them because of that fear.

And that's the most dangerous thing of all.