This type of conversation can occur in multiple forms, where even refraining from directly mentioning that you're vegan can still elicit these kinds of responses. For instance, if a person talks about a tofu recipe that they enjoy making, just the mention of tofu alone can often lead to a conversation of this variety. The hypothetical in particular was just used as one example to serve the point that I was trying to make with the post, but I could've used many other examples.

One that occurred to me in real life is when I actually had to take a rideshare from a vegan restaurant because of bad weather and the driver directly asked me, "Are you vegan?" when she saw the name of the restaurant and then proceeded to actually do some of the damage control that the post is referring to once I said "Yes." I didn't even say anything about ethics to this Uber driver because why would I?

And regardless, carnists don't need to do all of this damage control upon hearing any mention of veganism. They themselves can simply be decent people. Someone bringing up the fact that they're vegan in and of itself shouldn't be something that automatically leads to people pissing out tons of excuses as to why they are not vegan and/or goofy statements about how they "respect" veganism as a "personal choice." If it triggers that kind of response, then at that point, that carnist needs to look from within.

With that in mind, are you vegan?

Why shouldn't a vegan be allowed to say ? Because it's not ”the norm”? You're sounding a lot like those ”I like gay people as long as they stay in the closet” types.

Oh piss off