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Comment by bmacho | Hacker News Reader

> I’m gay so perhaps I understand how these words can be hurtful better than you do.

Gay community successfully reclaimed all the slur words (gay, queer, fag etc).

While I wish everyone could do that (change themselves to not to be offended, instead of demanding me to endlessly change my words), that's not the case, slur words still exist.

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reclaimed within the community

it would not be acceptable for someone outside it to use it.

As an European, that baffle me the casual discrimination that are rooted in your US mindsets.

The whole "You can do/say X if you are Y, but if you aren't Y, you are a racist/bigot/*phobe" isn't healthy to build a society without discrimination.

100% agree. As an Australian, it's fascinating to sit back and watch the mental gymnastics they need to run.

Lots of Americans (maybe even most) would agree with you.

But the people currently in power (institutional, corporate, and government) are all settled that this is the new standard. So we all have to pretend to agree or get kicked out of school, fired, or deplatformed.

gay and queer are not offensive even outside the community. It is acceptable for other people to use them. I haven't heard fag used non-offensively even inside the community, but maybe that's what needs to happen. Personally, I think it's great and that's what should happen to all slurs. They mean after all just "X but bad". When you turn them into just "X", you disarm the offenders and so the trend loses its memetic ability to replicate throughout tribes, and so people are less likely to denigrate only to assert their position as part of a tribe.

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