A is the interpretation: whenever a debater runs an advantage or talks about

suicide they must give their opponent judge and any spectators a trigger warning
to ask if thats ok, if either the judge or the opponent say no they can not run
anything about that topic.
B is the violation, I got no trigger warning or he ran it anyways
C are the standards:
1) Making debate a safe space.

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_28709792/palo-alto-students-tackle-teen-suicide-and-mental Jacqueline

Lee

PALO ALTO -- It was during first period on March 9 when (we) Andrew Baer learned
that yet another classmate had killed himself on the Caltrain tracks near Palo Alto
High School.
Qingyao "Byron" Zhu was the third of four teens who died by suicide on the tracks
last school year, and Paly teachers that day gave students time in class to talk or write about
their grief. One teacher read a poem.
(the rest of the article goes on about the interviewees new documentary as a means to cope but is
not my narrative.)

Byron was my friend. We had played soccer together during lunch for 2 years. We had
history class together in when this article was written. When I found out it was him I
skipped school for 2 days. After those two days I had to see a councilor at least once a
day for 3 weeks. This rocked my entire world, I couldnt find motivation to do anything. I
had negative thoughts creep into my mind. To be honest I just miss him and wish he
were back. But hes not. My friends have helped me get through this and most the time I
get by OK through a method of blocking it out and not feeling these emotions. Now im
back to doing debate after a break and you expect me to be mentally equipped to deal
with you spewing numbers about suicide. You dont know the first thing about it. This is
not something I can talk about, I cant talk about suicide as numbers or make counter
arguments like I can outweigh suicide. I just cant. So we have reached in impasse where
I no longer feel safe to debate and you never made an effort to reach out to me while
knowing suicide is a controversial issue and has effected people yet I'm either forced to
concede or suffer for the next 30 mins to make sure you pay for your mistake.
And making debate safe outweighs fairness and education as an independent
voting issue.
TEEHAN
Honestly, I don't think that 99% of what has been said in this thread so far actually matters. It doesn't matter
whether you think that these types of assumptions should be questioned. It doesn't matter what accepting
this intuition could potentially do or not do. It doesn't matter if you see fit to make, incredibly trivializing and
misplaced I might add, links between this and the Holocaust. All of the arguments that talk about how debate
is a unique space for questioning assumptions make an assumption of safety. They say that this is a space
where one is safe to question assumptions and try new perspectives. That is not true for everyone. When we
allow arguments that question the wrongness of racism, sexism, homophobia, rape, lynching, etc., we make
debate unsafe for certain people. The idea that debate is a safe space to question all assumptions is the
definition of privilege, it begins with an idea of a debater that can question every assumption. People who
face the actual effects of the aforementioned things cannot question those assumptions, and making debate
a space built around the idea that they can is hostile. So, you really have a choice. Either 1) say that you do
not want these people to debate so that you can let people question the wrongness of everything I listed
before, 2) say that you care more about letting debaters question those things than making debate safe for
everyone, or 3) make it so that saying things that make debate unsafe has actual repercussions. On "debate
is not the real world". Only for people who can separate their existence in "the real world" from their
existence in debate. That means privileged, white, heterosexual males like myself. I don't understand how

you can make this sweeping claim when some people are clearly harmed by these arguments. At the end of
the day, you have to figure out whether you care about debate being safe for everyone involved. I don't think
anyone has contested that these arguments make debate unsafe for certain people. If you care at all about
the people involved in debate then don't vote on these arguments. If you care about the safety and wellbeing
of competitors, then don't vote on these arguments. If you don't, then I honestly don't understand why you
give up your time to coach and/or judge. The pay can't be that good. I don't believe that you're just in it for
the money, which is why I ask you to ask yourselves whether you can justify making debate unsafe for
certain people.

Outweighs fairness you exclude people by not taking account of their speaking
position and assuming safety, but there is no prima facie equity in our ability to
engage different arguments so its a prior question to all-else-considered fairness
concerns.
Outweighs education-causes people to not participate in the activity meaning no
value can be gained from their thoughts.
2)Skews round: For the rest of the round my emotions and thoughts are skewed. Despite my
appearance of making good arguments elsewhere my mind will be on him. My ability to make
arguments has been dramatically reduced. This isnt a question of theory or a nuanced position,
its a moral one. All I ask si that you take a stance to protect me and other debaters like me that
have had to deal with these issues and cant deal with them here. If nto I may sooon have to say
farewell to debate because If I and others like me can not feel safe then we cant debate.

Reading these arguments without a trigger warning excludes

community members who have already been marginalized.
Performing complex tasks like debating when one has been
triggered is onerous, which putting them at an in-round
disadvantage. Tull 11
Matthew Tull, PhD. PTSD Expert. "Learning Difficulties in PTSD." AboutHealth. July 26.
2011. http://ptsd.about.com/od/relatedconditions/a/Learningproblemsinptsd.htm

There are a number of reasons people with PTSD may experience some learning
difficulties. First, when people experience high levels of anxious arousal, they
may be less likely to remember minor details, as high levels of anxiety can
interfere with the encoding of information into memory. In addition, when
people are anxious, they are more likely to notice and be unable to disengage
their attention from anxiety-provoking thoughts or images.

Controls the link to a valuable round since instead of education,

debaters feel threatened and overwhelmed, as Berman 3 adds:
Mia Berman, Premier Debate Today. "A Plea to Debaters."
11/3/14. http://premierdebatetoday.com/2014/11/03/a-plea-to-debaters-bymia-berman-2/
We cannot expect a debater who may be triggered by a topic to quit the
community, to not debate on that topic or to just tune out certain ACs. Putting a
victim in an adversarial scenario in which they are forced to respond to
something that is triggering is unfair and morally wrong. A debate round is no

longer a fair, fun or educational endeavor when a participant feels threatened. If

you are the one running these arguments, especially on a speech act/pre-fiat
level, the only way they could ever be persuasive is if you ensure you are running
them as a way to help victims, not to further and reinforce the original trauma.
To prevent these situations, I propose using a trigger warning.

3. Trigger warnings are key to creating safe debate space in

which everyone can engage. Berman 14.
A plea to debaters by Mia Berman. Mia Berman Premier Debate Today. Nov. 2,
2015. http://premierdebatetoday.com/2014/11/03/a-plea-to-debaters-by-miaberman-2/ RC
Triggers are events that may remind someone of a traumatic experience
or cause flashbacks and bring up strong negative emotions, often making one feel
unsafe and upset. Recently, many feminist blogs, newspapers, and even college classes have been using trigger warnings which aim to alert
individuals what is about to be discussed. In the context of articles, there has been some backlash about how useful these are, however, in the context of
debate rounds, they are valuable. Debaters do not choose the topics. We cannot expect a debater who may be
triggered by a topic to quit the community, to not debate on that topic or to just tune
out certain ACs. Putting a victim in an adversarial scenario in which they are forced to respond to something that is triggering is unfair and morally
wrong. A debate round is no longer a fair, fun or educational endeavor when a participant feels
What is triggering?

threatened. If you are the one running these arguments, especially on a speech act/pre-fiat level, the only way they could ever be persuasive is if you ensure you are
running them as a way to help victims, not to further and reinforce the original trauma. To prevent these situations, I propose using a trigger warning.

The aff should have a trigger warning before the first speech.
Berman 2
Mia Berman, Premier Debate Today. "A Plea to Debaters." 11/3/14. http://premierdebatetoday.com/2014/11/03/a-plea-to-debaters-by-mia-berman-2/

One debater simply asks the other debater and the judge whether
or not they feel comfortable hearing a case related to revenge
porn/domestic violence/etc. There have been some criticisms of trigger warnings, but its always better
to ask. First, the act of asking may be triggering in of itself . If this unfortunate
event occurs, opponents should offer time and space needed to recover before beginning the round. Still, a slight trigger before
the round is preferable to the shock of finding out in-round when the
case is read at 400 words per minute and youre forced to respond .
Heres how it works.

Another debate-specific problem is that opponents could abuse the goodwill of the individual running the potentially triggering case by claiming they will be
triggered to avoid debating the case. For this, debaters individually must take it upon themselves to be honest and respectful to those in the community that have
been through traumatic experiences and not abuse a system put in place to help them. Feigning trauma to avoid an argument is an atrocious thing to do, and I
would honestly like to believe our community is better than that.

4) disclosure doesnt solve, onc Im not going to read through anything titled suicide. Second
trigger warning solves better asking the victim to bring up the issue is only going to futher trauma
and I would have to do so in eevery round. The entire point is that I dont want to relive this
experience if I can avoid it. Also I dont know what your running I can always hope that you are
either breaking a new case or simply modified your current position so that it doesnt focus on
these things. Moreover not everyone checks the wiki such as traditional debaters and judges
definitely wont.

5) I dont need to post on wiki, a) I dont have one yet as an independent I dont have a wiki yet. B)
the wiki has an unfair precedent for teams with a better structure and more resources, almost no
traditional debate teams have wikis making it far less accessible to everyone. C) the wiki isnt done
in front of the judge where a trigger warning is, It needs to be clear that there is in round abuse
and not something hypothetical going on here. This is also ensures that the judge is not triggered
by an argument.
Voters. Drop the debater for making me feel unsafe and forcing me to behave in a way in which I
dont want to. More over this is the judges primary concern as an educator and arbitrator and a
human being. First it is essential to educate us on how our arguments affect people in the real
world and knowing how to engage with each other. It is also your responsibility to make sure I can
gain education from this whole affair which I am unable to if I feel unsafe. Second, you need to be
arbitrary on what is morally acceptable to occur in the debate space. If my opponent got up and
started screaming at swear words or attacked me you would tell him to stop and then leave, the
only difference is that this is mental assault and not physical. The third is moral, would you want
to put someone your close to under the duress I feel.
And reasonability is up for me to decide because the abuse is arbitrary either they hurt me or they
didnt however you as the judge cant know my level of pain and thus makes you ill-equipped to
determine your own bright line on how much abuse or how unsafe I feel. This means that unless
we share this same experience, I have to say what is a reasonable violation and what isnt one for
both the opponent and the judge.

Drop the debater 1. The NC was skewed. I cant redo it after the 1AR shifts. 2. Key
to deterrence, otherwise debaters will keep running stuff for a time skew, and in
case it doesnt get caught 3. Unique to discourse means that the debater won't
have much trouble changing the way he begins and opens up his speeches- one
loss should be sufficient but one drop the arg wouldnt be 4. Depth. Reject-thearg theory forces us to cover theory and substance which leads to shallow theory
debates that set worse norms for the activity. 5. Unique to this shell, my personal
experience means that the impacts are only magnitude so any marginal abuse
without me personally involved becomes a huge issue in this round.
Evaluate with competing interpretations, because with reasonability theory
becomes arbitrary, and impossible to adjudicate without intervention. Also, in
any other debate context it makes no sense nobody would say vote AFF because
while I dont outweigh the disad Im really close
And he must defend the converse as in he must defend that trigger warnings our bad. Essentially
he can not co opt my offence by using my interp + something else. The reason for this is because
1 ) my offence is my narrative not his. 2) prevents any real debate because it forces me to put all
my time on his shell since mine would become redundant. 3) means I just wasted 3.5 minutes on
theory and gives him a 7 minute to 6 minute theory ration on wherever he wants to pick his
ground. 4) unfair research burdens as I would have to prepare to literally any argument such as
his interp good unless I am below 5 feet tall.