> Before the weird sex stuff, "gimp" was an insulting term for a crippled person. The fact that it's so long out of common use for that purpose that a lot of folks don't realize that is perhaps an argument for not taking it too seriously

It's a US specific slur when used in this context, not in other English speaking countries (let alone non-English countries) A lot of GIMP developers are European yet the Glimpse project tried to force American cultural/linguistic rules on a non-American project.

Words mean different things in different regions and languages, just because it's offensive in your language does not mean it's offensive in others.