> They go quiet or form a tiny invite only groups to hide after an attempt to do something good that backfired because their skin is the wrong colour or they aren’t trans.
It really sounds like they accidentally offended someone, the person who was offended was so much so that they couldn't communicate why they were offended, and then your friends misinterpreted the issue.
That's an odd reading of what they described. It sounds more like there friends did something good in the world but were told to sit-down and shut-up because they were the wrong race/gender/x.
That seems like a pretty ignorant thing to say, that in the sum of all human interactions online, the event OP described has never happened (or is even supposedly that rare). I would like to know why you think that would be true.
It certainly exists and I truly envy the fact it hasn’t affected your life yet. n=1 but it’s affected mine as a recent college graduate and person who works in FAANG.
There's a good example of just this thing happening right here[0]. A group of young climate activists disbanded because despite the good work they were doing they decided their group was too top-loaded with white people and should be led by POC.
It really sounds like they accidentally offended someone, the person who was offended was so much so that they couldn't communicate why they were offended, and then your friends misinterpreted the issue.