Reclaiming slurs (TW for use of slurs)

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Rose Fox
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Reclaiming slurs (TW for use of slurs)

Post by Rose Fox »

//Mod note: There are slurs used in this thread in a reclamatory fashion that are not behind the trigger warning text blackout. We'd like to warn people who have feelings about that that they may not have the best experience reading this thread. Community standards on the board state that slurs be TW:ed; please consider this your trigger warning.


//











In another post I used "gimpy" to describe my own disabled arms. A mod TW'd it for ableism. I'm pretty sure I'm not being ableist toward myself--it's a reclaimed slur. I also call myself a queer, a dyke, crazy, and other terms that are often used as insults when directed by one person at another. What are people's thoughts on this? Should there be a blanket ban on those terms on the board, or should this be a space where people who are often targeted by those terms can reclaim them?
Last edited by Elodieunderglass on Fri May 15, 2015 4:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited to add master trigger warning and space for people to click away.
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rubymendez
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Re: Reclaiming slurs

Post by rubymendez »

You're not the first person to use such a term to describe an aspect of themselves... Personally, I like doing it. I do it sometimes in person and have fun with it.

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Re: Reclaiming slurs

Post by rubymendez »

Oops - "not the first person here on the forum" is what I meant to say.

Nerdlinger
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Reclaiming slurs

Post by Nerdlinger »

I use certain terms for myself on occasion too. My personal rule is that I can't control how others talk about themselves and vice versa. I don't have to like it, but (with some exceptions) how someone chooses to describe themselves is none of my damn business. That being said, I wonder because we're on an internet forum, and our discussions aren't necessarily private, the mods were concerned about triggering folks who may be more sensitive to more problematic terms, even if being used in good faith to describe ourselves.

I'm wondering if we should think about having a more 201-level space for more specific topics? Like a place where HERE BE YE CERTAIN TRIGGERS BEYOND THIS POINT is a clear part of that space's rules. There are definitely some topics I don't discuss here, not because I doubt the members and their abilities, but more out of concern that in the heat of venting, I could use language that would be misinterpreted.* If I know I need to speak in a raw-er state, I have those conversations elsewhere.

*Edited to add: Its not to handle anyone here like fragile china - because clearly the members of FoCA are incredible and amazing folks. But as we can all clearly see, everyone has different issues and are in different stages of healing and I want to respect whatever place people are in as much as possible.




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Re: Reclaiming slurs

Post by GoatLady »

Yeah normally I refer to myself as crippled and crazy. I don't here because of the policies on language. Doesn't bother me that much because there are some disability spaces where the use of those terms is strongly contested, but it does sometimes grate a bit.
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Re: Reclaiming slurs

Post by creativeusername »

I've called myself [tw: ableist slur] a retard a couple of times around here and no one has said anything to me about it, presumably because I put it behind a trigger warning to begin with, so it seems like the implicit rule (which, yes, could do with being made explicit) is that it's okay to slur oneself only if the slur is in a trigger warning for the sake of people who are in a different mental/emotional state. That seems like a fair compromise to me, especially since it may not be obvious that a person is reclaiming a word rather than just using it casually.

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rusty
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Re: Reclaiming slurs

Post by rusty »

Hm, but which of (homophobia) queer, dyke, fag, or pansy (all words I identify with) should I warn for? How about (homophobia) genderqueer? Are they at different stages in reclamation? (e.g. a minority of LGBT people have problems with seeing the q-word and it's become kind of unavoidable if you hang out in LGBT spaces, but some certainly do, and they tend to be older and already more excluded.) If they are at different stages of reclamation, how do we decide what's reclaimed enough?

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Re: Reclaiming slurs (TW for use of slurs)

Post by Elodieunderglass »

//Mod in//

Hi Rose,

I've stuck a TW on your post so people can make decisions about whether this is the thread for them.

//
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Re: Reclaiming slurs (TW for use of slurs)

Post by GoatLady »

Actually, the solution of warning for threads, or warning at the top of your (general your) post feels like a pretty fair compromise to me.
Saying "You have to cover even reclaimed slurs" feels kind of gross to me, like saying we shouldn't be reclaiming them. But saying "nobody can be bothered by these words, because we're reclaiming them" ALSO feels gross, when in some cases they're words that still are used to abuse people.

So I guess I feel like Elodie's solution of warning on top of a post is maybe our best compromise between saying "these words must always be covered" (which feels to me like it's undermining work at reclaiming them) and "these words should never be covered", which feels to me like undermining people for whom they are problematic.

That being said, I think the usual TW style should be used in cases where e.g. someone is recounting verbal abuse that involves using slurs to hurt or attempt to hurt someone, including negative self-talk.
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Re: Reclaiming slurs (TW for use of slurs)

Post by Lirael »

Hmm, I feel like a point that I've made in a VERY different context (arguing about trigger warnings with people who don't think they should exist at all) might help here.

Trigger warnings aren't value judgments on content, because people aren't only triggered or otherwise thrown off their emotional balance by bad or malicious content. Again, I suspect that we all know this. There might be people for whom past trauma around a slur means that having a warning before they see used it in ANY context, including a reclaimed one, is helpful. That does not mean using reclaimed slurs for yourself is bad or wrong, any more than a TW on someone's rape story means that they're bad or wrong for telling their story or that it's something that people in general shouldn't read.

I do get why it would feel wrong to have the trigger warning for a reclaimed slur that you use for yourself be something like "tw: ableism". AFAIK, we get to decide on our own descriptions for possible triggers (and I've always found that specificity is better with trigger warnings anyway) so would it feel less icky to label the same thing "tw: reclaiming an ableist slur"?

As far as specific terms go, this thread brought up (tw: possibly a reclaimed homophobic or transphobic slur?) genderqueer as an example of a reclaimed homophobic slur. I get that the last syllable of this word is a reclaimed slur, but is the whole word one as well? I've never heard of this word being used as a slur.

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