As a vegan myself, I’ve only met a handful number of other vegans in my lifetime irl, being raised omnivore for 23 years until changing.

Whenever I talk about the reasons why I made the switch to those who are curious, I always keep the militant vegans in mind and try to offer more charity than I otherwise would.

We vegans need to show the world that whether it’s diet or clothing (general use, specific use, etc.) or medicine or society (e.g. slaughterhouse workers contributing to societal psychosis) or climate or species loss or economic transparency, making the change is easy and a socially accepted thing to do.

This absolutely cannot take form as aggression against those that would be considered outside of our “group”. Any means of using coercion or manipulation to change what others do is a violation of their moral capacities. Unfortunately, humans also violate the moral capacities of more than 100 billion animals every year, so the trade-off can seem justified to some.

Every vegan needs to remind themselves that we’re doing this for the animals first and foremost. All behaviors should be guided by that principle: to reduce suffering for them as much as possible. Being militant, aggressive, and shameful to others can result in backlashes where people dig their heels in. A better way of convincing would be to use science, moral charity, easy alternatives, and factual evidence of the crimes done against animals. If we respect people to be able to change their minds given the evidence to do so, then they will.