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These guys interviewing him are right-wing Christians, who are the only people who would ever interview this guy, as he wouldn't get past the woke filter on just about any other podcast, so you'll just have to accept that they're going to have that point of view to begin with.

The guy has a lot of documentation for where this all came from out of nowhere. I bought the book and it's fascinating how much documentation the guy has on how the whole thing got astroturfed in no time. I don't know how old you are, but before the early 2000s, the only place that I ever encountered "transexuals" was in San Francisco sex clubs. Then all of a sudden, in the span of less than 10 years they're everywhere. How the heck did that all happen? Reading through his research is a really interesting deep dive into how to bootstrap a radical cultural change from scratch.

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Using an obviously derogatory term for trans people really doesn't help your point at all. It hints to the possibility that you have a personal belief that sees trans people as unnatural and because of that belief it's easier for you to believe in an outlandish conspiracy theory than simply accepting that the reason for an increase in visible trans people is acceptance by society.

Edit for context since OP has edited his comment without acknowledging it: Where it now says ""transsexuals"" it said "trannies" before.

What's the derogatory term for trans people? I missed it.

Op has edited his comment, see my edit.

You're right, I don't take the transexual movement seriously. I edited my language as that's the word they called themselves back in the sex club days and I wouldn't want to hurt someone. In fact, their was a nightclub where you could meet Transexuals in the late 1990s in San Francisco called "Trannyshack" that was pretty obscure back then, but is now hugely famous now that the "transexual" movement has grown into an industry. "Transexuals" are just as big of victims of all this as everyone else and why cause them more trauma by calling them something that offends them. I would call someone walking around in a full body fury costume by whatever they're comfortable with too.

There are plenty of popular rap songs that use what Americans call 'the n-word' quite liberally as an in-group identifier. Use that word in polite conversation and you get labelled, quite rightly, a bigot.

A gay man might jokingly call himself a poof (or one of his straight close friends might in the same vein based on a mutual understanding), but again, you don't use such words in a polite, neutral setting without coming across as a very nasty person.

Some women are trying to reappropriate the word 'slut' from its negative connotations (cf. The Ethical Slut, Easton and Hardy, 2009) and some use it proudly, but again, anyone calling any woman who has an active sex live with more than one lover a slut will be met with derision.

This is no different.

Not a native speaker here. How come it's supposed to be a derogatory term? I mean, you would say "granny" because "grandmother" is too long. So saying "tranny" instead of "transsexual" makes sense, it even has more syllables.

Why is any word considered derogatory? Enough people used it derogatorily.

That's not how words work. It's definitionally derogatory, it doesn't get points for being an abbreviation.

Why is any particular word derogatory? Every language has taboo or offensive words. This is one of them in English.

There's no consistent grammatical rule. Certain words and phrases are obvious warning signs about the speaker, but you have to be somewhat immersed in the culture to notice. Usually the literal meaning of the word / phrase really is an innocent neutral descriptor.

No one ever starts a sentence with "The Jews control" and ends it with "the home owners association on our block and have done a phenomenal job managing it."

No one ever says "The Japs" followed by "have really contributed to our culture in the form of anime".

No one ever says "that n***" followed by "is an inspiration to us all and we are proud to have him in our community."

No one ever uses the word "tranny" followed by something well thought out and respectful of transexual people.

None of these words/phrases have an offensive dictionary meaning, but they are all rightfully associated with offensive speech.

Both are diminutives. The thing with diminutives is that they can show both affection and disrespect.

It's usually the first if referring to familiar people and the second if referring to strangers. Even exactly the same word can cut both ways. "Dear" is affectionate towards family members, calling a coworker "dear" is condescending.

Also, as other posters have said, rule-based logic can only get you so far. It's all in the context.

Have you considered that oppression of trans people causes them to hide and the more widespread acceptance of other LGB identities causes trans people to let themselves be more visible in everyday life? Just because you didn't see them before doesn't mean they weren't there.

> I don't know how old you are, but before the early 2000s, the only place that I ever encountered "transexuals" was in San Francisco sex clubs.

The way I remember the pre-2000s there was definitely mention of trans people in popular culture. The big difference is being trans was being treated as the punchline, or otherwise derogatory. (The first example that comes to mind is Tone-Lōc's 'Funky Cold Medina', and also that Aerosmith song https://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/desmond-child)

Rofl... Yes - only in San Francisco... Yeah you're obviously either very uneducated or willfully ignorant about global history and culture. In countries and times that weren't dominated by the christian ideas of moral oppression - that lead to criminalization or at a minimum being outcast because of a social stigma and fear of violence of everyone not straight - LGBT were and are a visible part of society - not especially visible because nobody cared about making them especially visible because it was normal and accepted. Now after the first wins against oppression due to activism the right produces this fear and panic of the 'wokeness' to again demonize these people and 'liberals'. It's the new fear of socialists basically - a useful buggyman for reactionaries and religious fundamentalists. I wouldn't even know what woke meant wouldn't I be on social media and being confronted by all this alt-right nonsense troll-posts where they blow up a noname 'dumb woke' liberal strawman-post on a daily basis.

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