Tag: dehumanization

Responding to desexualization without hurting others

Real Social Skills

Content note: This post is about ableism and desexualization of adults with disabilities. It is highly likely to be triggering to some people who have experienced degrading desexualization, as well as to some people who have been sexually assaulted or otherwise had people violate their sexual boundaries.

A reader asked:

As an autistic person I often feel desexualised, and I don’t like it but I feel sorta uncomfortable stating it for some reason? How should I like, deal with this and enforce my sexuality without making people uncomfortable?

realsocialskills said:

This gets really complicated.

Being desexualized is awful, and it’s also really hard to talk about without sounding like you feel entitled to sexual or romantic attention from other people. Especially when you’re talking to people who’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of intrusive sexual attention and who aren’t aware that desexualization also happens and is also a problem.

Another complication is that many adults really are asexual or aromantic. That’s an ok way to be, and it’s important to acknowledge that those people exist and aren’t broken. Objecting to desexualization does not mean objecting to asexual people.

People who desexualize adults with disabilities in these ways aren’t recognizing asexual adulthood; they’re denying disabled adulthood and expressing it in sexual terms. (And this denial of adulthood expressed in sexual terms also hurts asexual adults).

I think that desexualization is when people refuse to acknowledge or respect some basic things:

  • That you’ve reached adulthood or you are a teenager
  • That you’re as likely as anyone else your age to experience romantic and sexual attraction
  • That if you are experiencing sexual and/or romantic attraction, it’s as significant and important as attraction anyone else experiences
  • If you want to, it’s completely appropriate for you to act on your sexual and romantic feelings (either with yourself or consenting other people)
  • You have the same right to physical, sexual, and emotional boundaries as anyone else

People who desexualize you might treat you inappropriately in group dynamics, eg:

  • By assuming that you will never have a crush on anyone in your friend group
  • By assuming that you don’t date for real and will always be available to go to couple’s events with someone who is caught without a partner at the last minute
  • By saying things like “I hate men/women/whoever. You’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with dating them.“
  • Or like “It’s so great to talk to you about this stuff. I’m so tired of how everyone else is making the group awkward with their dating drama.”
  • Or venting to you about how hard it is for them to find a partner without considering that you might share this frustration, and that it’s probably harder for you than it is for them
  • Or making jokes about how you’re their ~boyfriend~/~girlfriend~, ignoring the possibility that you might want to be someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend and that you might, in fact, be attracted to them.

People who desexualize you also sometimes don’t observe appropriate sexual boundaries, eg:

  • Assuming that rules of modesty don’t apply to you
  • Undressing in front of you (in a community in which it would normally be considered inappropriate for someone of their age and gender to undress in from of someone of your age and gender)
  • Touching you in ways that are considered inappropriately intimate in your social circles for people who are not romantically or sexually involved
  • Adopting suggestive poses or being inappropriately close (eg: by having their breasts or crotch way too close to your face)
  • (The rules of acceptable nudity, physical contact, and closeness are different in different cultures, and that’s fine. What’s not fine is having established rules of modesty/boundaries but ignoring them when interacting with disabled people)

It’s ok to be angry about this kind of thing, and it’s ok to insist that people knock it off and treat you with more respect. It’s ok to expect people to respect your maturity, your romantic and sexual capacity, and your physical and emotional boundaries.

For instance, it’s ok to say “I’m a grown man; you shouldn’t be changing in front of me,” or “I’m not your girlfriend; stop touching me like that,” or “I don’t want to go to that event with you unless it’s a real date,” or “I don’t like it when you make jokes about dating me,” or “I get crushes too you know.” This will probably make some people uncomfortable; and that’s ok. You don’t have to do all of the emotional labor of making social interactions comfortable; it’s ok to have boundaries even when other people don’t like them. It’s also ok to insist that people acknowledge and respect your age even if they’d rather see you as a child.

It’s ok to be angry about people treating you badly in areas related to sexuality, and it’s ok to insist that they knock it off. It’s ok to be upset when you’re single and don’t want to be, and it’s ok to be upset about the role that ableism is playing in making it hard to find someone.

It’s also important to be careful that this doesn’t turn into anger at people for having sexual boundaries of their own. It can easy for some people to become confused about this when start realizing that it’s ok to have sexual feelings, and not ok that others treat you as though your disability means your sexuality doesn’t count. If you’ve been treated as outside of legitimate sexuality for your whole life, you likely have missed opportunities to learn about consent and appropriate sexual and romantic interactions. That’s not your fault; it is your responsibility to address. Being the object of discrimination does not give you a free pass to violate other people’s boundaries, even if you’re not doing it on purpose.

It’s important to keep in mind that no one is obligated to date you, sleep with you, allow you to touch them, consider dating you, justify their lack of interest in dating you, or anything else like that. (And that it’s not ok to hit on people if you’re in a position of power over them).

You’re human, so it’s likely that you’re having some less-than-ideal feelings about this stuff some of the time. You might feel jealous, or upset, or even angry at people who haven’t really done anything wrong. (Because they’re dating visibly and you’re lonely, or because you asked them out and they said no, or other things like that which can hurt to see but aren’t their fault.) It’s ok if you’re feeling that way; you don’t have to have superhuman control of your feelings to treat people well. What’s important is that you don’t feed it, and that you don’t act on it.

In particular, it’s important not to cultivate offense when people you’re interested in dating aren’t interested in you. That leads nowhere good. (eg: I got an ask about how to stand up to a person who was using disability as an excuse to grope people a while back.)

Rejection sucks, and it sucks more when you’re already really lonely, and it sucks even more when you know that ableism is probably a major factor in why some people you’re attracted to aren’t interested. It can be really tempting when things are that hard to take offense. It’s important to stay aware that people who reject you aren’t wronging you, and to find constructive ways to deal with it that don’t involve contempt for the people you’re attracted to. (In particular, stay away from pick up artist communities. Adopting that worldview makes it much harder to learn about good consent and have respectful relationships).

It’s also important to keep in mind that it’s ok for you to be sexual and to express interest in dating people. (Even if you encounter people who are profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of disabled people having and acting on sexual and romantic feelings. Those people are wrong.) Your sexuality is not ever the problem. (It’s possible sometimes that things you’re doing might be a problem, but having a sexuality is never a problem in itself.)

In particular – if you ask someone out or hit on them and they say no, that doesn’t mean that you did something wrong. It just means that they aren’t interested. Asking people who turn out not to be interested is ok; asking is how you find out. You don’t have to be a mindreader in order for it to be ok to ask someone out.

All of this can be really, really hard to navigate. I hope some of this helped.

Short version: Disabled adults and teenagers are often treated like children. People often express this in sexualized terms by assuming that disabled adults are all incapable of legitimate sexual expression. It’s awful to be on the receiving end of that. It’s also hard to talk about or object to effectively. Scroll up for more thoughts on how to navigate this.

Doing what you must and feeling like you’re faking

Real Social Skills

Content note: This post is about the broad (inaccurate) perception that people with disabilities are faking, and ways that forces some people with disabilities to partially misrepresent the exact nature of their disability. Proceed with caution. 

Some people without disabilities believe that there are massive numbers of people faking disability, and that they must be caught and stopped. People who believe this usually don’t know very much about what disability actually looks like. They tend to assume that anyone with a disability who has non-stereotypical abilities is faking their disability.

Real disability often doesn’t look like stereotypical disability. For instance, many wheelchair users can walk, and many people who have service dogs can read, and many people have different abilities on different days depending on their energy and pain levels. This doesn’t mean that they are faking. It just means that their combination of abilities and disabilities don’t look like media tropes, because they are real people.

People with non-stereotypical disabilities can be in a very difficult place when dealing with people who think this way. It’s a pervasive problem, and people with a misplaced dedication to rooting out fakers often have a lot of destructive power over people who need disability-related support.

Being thought of as faking can mean that you lose accommodations. It can mean that you lose services that you need in order to survive. It can mean you get harassed. It can mean people are violent.

Sometimes, people with disabilities have no realistic option other than to allow people to believe that they fit these stereotypes:

Eg:

  • On a college campus, every dorm except one is completely inaccessible.
  • The main entrance to the partially accessible dorm has stairs
  • There is an accessible entrance for employees and residents with disabilities, but it’s always locked
  • In order to get a key, you have to convince Fred the building manager that you need one
  • Fred is very suspicious of disability claims, and is constantly trying to catch people faking disability
  • Fred believes that anyone using a wheelchair who can walk, stand, or even move their legs, is a faker who needs to be called out and prevented from using accessibility resources (if you don’t know why he’s wrong, read this post)
  • Wheelchair users who need access to that building are careful to give Fred the impression that they are completely unable to walk or stand. They never stand in front of him, or in a place where he might turn up unexpected. They carefully avoid referencing their ability to stand to anyone who might repeat it to Fred.
  • They may even have to outright lie about this in order to prevent Fred from taking away their access to the only door they can use. (eg: If Fred asks them directly, or rants about fakers, or makes them fill out an intrusive form).

More generally:

  • Many, many people have strong attachments to stereotypical ideas about how disability works
  • They tend to think that people who don’t fit those stereotypes are faking disability
  • Most people with disabilities don’t fit disability stereotypes particularly well
  • It’s often dangerous for people with disabilities to be perceived as faking it
  • That’s a hard situation, because:
  • There may be times when you know that if you describe your abilities and access needs completely accurately, people are likely to think that you are faking
  • But if you somewhat misrepresent your abilities in a way that fits the stereotype, then they’ll believe you about your real access needs
  • Which can put you into the awkward position of having to choose between representing the nature of your disability fully accurately and being thought of as faking, or allowing people to inaccurately believe that you fit a stereotype and being believed
  • That’s degrading on a level it’s hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it
  • It’s also a common experience among people with disabilities, and if that’s what you’re dealing with, it’s not your fault.

Some additional examples:

  • Some people who can write a little bit by hand are careful not to write in front of most people, so they they will not be assumed to be capable of the kind of writing that is completely impossible for them
  • Some people who are not autistic but have similar support needs due to less well-known conditions end up with an inaccurate autism diagnosis in order to gain access to services that they absolutely need in order to access education or to survive
  • Some people with both physical and cognitive disabilities allow others to assume that they are more physically disabled than they really are as a way of getting their cognitive access needs met without having to face certain kinds of cognitive ableism
  • Some people who can speak only a few words are careful to avoid speaking in front of most people, lest someone decide to take away the communication system they need to communicate things that can’t be expressed in their few spoken words

If you have a disability and you are not free to describe it fully accurately lest you lose accommodations, lose services, or face frightening harassment, know that you are not alone. A lot of people with disabilities experience this at some point or other. It’s humiliating and corrosive to go through, and it may make you feel like you are faking or that your needs are imaginary. It helps to remember that this is not actually your fault.

You are not faking, and your needs matter. You are a real person with a real disability doing the best you can in a hostile world. You are not alone, and it helps to remember that. There are other people with disabilities who are there, or who have been there, who understand that struggle.

Short version: People with disabilities are often forced to pretend to meet stereotypes in order to get their very real needs met. This is humiliating and degrading. If you’re dealing with that, it’s not your fault and you’re not alone.

Document communication

Real Social Skills

This post may not apply to all of you, but I know a lot of you work with people whose communication is impaired, so:

I’ve come to believe that if others are reporting that someone has no communication, it is important for others responsible for their care to do everything in their power to counteract this.

Being perceived as noncommunicating is dangerous. It can prevent someone from ever being listened to. It can also lead ableists to withhold medically necessary care because they believe that person’s life is not worth living. 

You can’t reliably assess someone’s receptive communication unless they have expressive communication that you can understand (and even then, it’s difficult). Being unable to respond is not the same as having no understanding, and it’s wrong to assume that people don’t understand. So, really, no living person should ever be described as having no communication. That may not be in your power to fix, but keeping it in mind will help you to treat people better.

Beyond that, most people who are described as having no expressive communication actually do. Don’t be led astray by someone else saying that someone is “noncommunicative” or “nonverbal”. Unless the person they’re talking about is in a coma, they’re probably wrong. If you look for communication, you will be able to listen to them better, and also better able to protect them by documenting their communication. So look for it, and document it, and tell other people who care for them. Their life may depend on it, and the way they’re treated almost certainly does.

Some specific things you can look for:

  • Do they turn their head when you come in?
  • Flap their hands when they’re angry or happy?
  • Vocalize?
  • Say words that may or may not be communicative? 
  • Try to get out of their chair?
  • Sing?
  • Become more calm or agitated when you speak to them?
  • Make eye contact?
  • Say numbers?
  • (There are any number of other things)

Everyone with voluntary control over any part of their body communicates. If you’re working with someone, learn their communication and do what you can to make it known that their communication exists and matters.

Nice Lady Therapists

Real Social Skills

Content warning: this post is about physical and emotional harm done to people (especially children) with disabilities by (mostly) female therapists. Proceed with caution.

This is a hard post to write. It’s about abuse. It’s about a kind of abuse I haven’t seen described much. I think abuse is the right word, even though a lot of abusers probably genuinely think they’re doing the right thing.

Anyway, here goes:

Many, many people with disabilities I know have been harmed or even outright abused by Nice Lady Therapists. (Usual caveat: not all therapists are abusive, and this post is not opposition to childhood therapy. I’m saying that therapists need to stop hurting kids and other vulnerable people, not that therapy is evil. Pointing out that therapy is often important and that many therapists are good is not an answer to what I am describing.)

Nice Lady Therapists tell us that, whatever they do to us is by definition nice, and good for us. And that we like it, and that they love us, and that they are rescuing us, and that we are grateful.

They have a brightly-decorated therapy room full of toys, and assure every adult they come across that ~their kids~ love therapy. They use a lot of praise and enthusiastic affect, and maybe positive reinforcement with stickers and prizes. They might call the things they have kids do games. Some of them really do play games.

And every interaction with them is degrading in a way that’s hard to pinpoint, and hard to recover from. They do all kinds of things to kids with disabilities that typically developing kids would never be expected to tolerate. And they do it with a smile, and expect the kids they’re doing it to to smile back.

Sometimes it hurts physically, sometimes it hurts emotionally. Sometimes it’s a matter of being 12 years old and expected to trace a picture for toddlers for the zillionth time. And being told “This is fun! I used to do this all the time when I was a kid!”.

Sometimes it’s a matter of being forced to do a frightening or physically painful exercise, and being forbidden to express pain or fear. It hurts their feelings if a kid is upset. Don’t we know how much she cares? Don’t we know that she’d never do anything to hurt us? Don’t we want to learn and grow up to be independent?

Sometimes it’s a matter of being expected to accept intensely bad advice as though it’s insight. For instance, getting sent to therapy because you’re not making friends. And being told “We are all friends in this school! You have to give the other kids a chance.” And, if you try to explain otherwise, she patiently and lovingly explains to you why your thinking is distorted and you’ll have lots of friends if you just let yourself try.

Sometimes it’s – crossing a physical line. Touching in a way they have no good reason to be touching. Or touching over the objections of the kid in a way that is in no way justified by therapy goals. Sometimes sexually, sometimes not. Sometimes in ways that are against ethical standards of practice, sometimes not. But intimately, invasively. And if you say no, she patiently, lovingly, explains that you have nothing to be afraid of and that everything is ok. And that if you just trust her, you will have fun and get better. And when her profession has professional training about boundaries and appropriate touch, she thinks or even says “women don’t do that.”

Some male therapists do many of these things too, but there’s a gendered version of it that usually comes from women. And that can cause a problem for people with disabilities who are recovering from this. Most things about trauma and abuse of power are about misogyny in some way. They’re about men hurting women, and taking advantage of power dynamics that favor men to do so. Those descriptions are important because that pattern is common. But it is not the only abuse pattern, and it is not the only gendered abuse pattern.

Female therapists are subjected to misogyny and the power of men just as much as any other women. But they also have tremendous power over people with disabilities, many of whom are deeply dehumanized. The assumption that women have neither the power nor the ability to hurt anyone gets really dangerous really quickly for children with disabilities receiving therapy.

And it also means that people with disabilities often have a different relationship to gender than most nondisabled people. If you’ve been harmed by women over and over and assured that you liked it, it complicates things. If you’re a girl, it can make it hard to see a group of women as a Safe Space, especially if they think the thing making it safe is keeping the men out. If you’re a boy who has been repeatedly harmed by women who believed they were powerless, it can be hard to understand that the gender hierarchies that feminists and others talk about actually do exist. And it complicates things in any number of other ways.

But if you have been hurt by Nice Lady Therapists, you are not alone. If it has affected your relationship to gender, you are not alone. If it has left scars that others say you shouldn’t have because she was nice and meant well, you are not alone.

You don’t have to think someone is nice because she says she is. It’s ok to think that someone is hurting you even if that upsets them. You don’t have to think someone is safe or loving just because they are a woman or a therapist or smiling. Women can be abusive too. In human services, it is common. You are not alone, and it was wrong to treat you that way. The harm done to you was not because of your disability, and it’s not something that you could have fixed by being more cooperative or working harder or having a better attitude.  It’s not your fault, and it’s not because of anything wrong with you. And it’s not your fault if it still hurts.

People with disabilities learn and think

Real Social Skills

People with disabilities are capable of learning things on purpose, because they’re interested in what they’re learning. That’s true of people with all kinds and degrees of disability. Everyone cares about things, everyone thinks, any everyone learns.

And yet, education for people with disabilities often starts from the assumption that disabled folks have no intrinsic motivation to learn. That, before you can start to teach anything, you have to identify a reinforcer for the target behavior. And that it should be the same across subjects, and that it needn’t have any relation to what you’re trying to teach.

So, instead of starting by teaching reading, you might start by identifying an effective reinforcer, and using it to reinforce reading behavior. For example, stickers. Or giving a jellybean each time someone reads a page. Or high fives. 

In a technical sense, finding a book that someone enjoys is also, according to behaviorist theory, finding an effective reinforcer for reading behavior. But it’s not at all the same as using an unrelated reinforcer to teach reading.

Finding a book that interests a person you’re teaching to read communicates why reading is worthwhile. Using an unrelated reinforcer to get them to cooperate with reading lessons may work, but it doesn’t communicate the value of reading. In fact, it actively demonstrates that you’re assuming that they will not value reading and that it’s not worth trying to convince them that reading is worthwhile. 

The same is true of communication lessons. Identifying a reinforcer and using it to reinforce speaking behavior can get someone to cooperate with rote speech lessons, but it can’t teach them what symbolic communication is. Figuring out what someone wants to say, and giving them a reliable way to say it, can. So can making sure that you listen to communication someone already has, and making it clear that you respect them. (If you refuse to learn their language, you’re teaching them that their communication doesn’t matter. Which is the opposite of helpful.) Behaviorist approaches something accomplish that, but only as a side effect. You can teach communication better if you teach it directly, rather than as a side effect of reinforcing speaking or pointing behavior. 

People with disabilities care about things, and want to learn. The assumption that we don’t is deeply degrading. 

You never had to prove them wrong

Real Social Skills

When you grow up with stigma, people tell you a lot of well-meaning things that actually cause problems. When you face people treating you like you’re less of a person, someone will often say something like:

  • “You’ll prove them all wrong some day”.
  • “It’s ok. You’ll show them. You’ll prove that you’re better than they ever could have imagined.”

And then, when you accomplish things, it often becomes, “Well, you proved them wrong, didn’t you?”

People who say this often mean well, but this is a form of victim-blaming, and it can hurt people who believe it really badly. The truth is:
   
You didn’t prove them wrong. You never had to prove them wrong. They were already wrong.
   
Prejudice is not something you have to earn your way out of. Dehumanization isn’t your fault. You don’t have to prove that you are human in order to be human. You don’t have to have amazing accomplishments in order to prove that you have worth. Everyone has worth. People who don’t recognize yours have always been wrong.
 
You didn’t prove them wrong. They were already wrong. About you, and about everyone else too.
 
You might have to fight to be seen as a person. You might have to fight for your life and your safety and for basic respect. That’s a fight you may or may not win. It’s a fight that, no matter how hard you try or how good you are, you will never win all the way. There will still be those who hate you and see you as subhuman.
 
But you can be ok, anyway. You’re ok. You’re whole. You deserve better. It’s not your fault they don’t see it. It’s theirs.
 
You have always been a full person, fully deserving of respect and equal treatment. People who treat you as a lesser being have always been wrong.
 
Knowing that helps.

Disability pity

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
I heard that disabled people dislike getting sympathy, and I had trouble understanding that. But then later I was somewhat disabled, and received some unwanted sympathy, and I found it really horrible. I had a very strong feeling, maybe it could be called humiliation.
So then I understood; but I don’t know how to explain that to people who haven’t experienced it. My theory: people like sympathy if something bad has just happened, but if it’s long-term then it’s normal for them.
realsocialskills said:
I think the main problem is that people offer disabled people sympathy for all the wrong reasons.
They want to tell us that our bodies are awful, and sympathize with what they imagine it must be like to be in such an awful body. There’s not a lot of respect there. Or willingness to listen to what we actually experience or how we actually see things.
People like that want to offer sympathy that it’s hard to understand without captions, but no sympathy for how frustrating it is that no one ever provides them. They want to offer sympathy for people’s inability to walk up stairs, but no sympathy for how awful it is that people decide not to build ramps. They want to offer sympathy that someone is dying for disability-related reasons, but no sympathy for the fact that they are being denied treatment by ableist doctors.
People with disabilities are, first and foremost, people. And people who ooze sympathy are not interested in recognizing that.

Some signs that a place might be an institution

Real Social Skills

Lack of accomodation for disability:

  • An organization workign with disabled or elderly or sick people ought to have a clue about access and adaptability
  • If they don’t, it’s a major red flag
  • Some examples:
  • If there are a lot of people who need wheelchairs, and none of them have personally-fitted chairs, that’s a red flag. If everyone is using an institutional wheelchair, it’s probably an institution
  • If there are a lot of residents who have limited use of their hands, and no one has any adaptive equipment for doing things like changing TV channels, it’s probably an institution

People conflate patient/client opinions with family opinions

  • For instance, if they claim that everyone there wants to be, but then they only talk about what family members say about it
  • If it’s a place people can be put into by their family members without any attempt made to see if they consent
  • If all the information on a website is for family members or social workers, and none of it is directed at people who might live in or get services from a place, it’s probably an institution

If people need staff assistance or permission to contact the outside world

  • If people who can use phones independently don’t have access to phones without asking first, it’s probably an institution
  • If there are no computers available, or all the computers are in public places, it’s probably an institution
  • If you need a password for the wifi and the residents don’t have the password, it’s probably an institution
  • If nobody has a personal cell phone, landline, or computer, it’s probably an institution

Concepts of functioning levels

  • If a place claims to be a last resort for people who can’t function in a normal setting, it’s probably an institution and it’s probably doing horrible things

Bragging about mundane things as evidence of being wonderful places:

  • It’s very common for institutions to loudly proclaim that they have a pool, TVs, a barber shop, a charity shop people can work in, or other such things
  • If they think this is deeply impressive, something is wrong
  • Things that wouldn’t be particularly notable in an apartment building or neighborhood shouldn’t be particularly notable just because elderly or disabled people are involved
  • If people think they are, it’s probably an institution, and it’s probably intentionally confusing clients about what it means to be free and in the community

If people involved are required to regularly praise it

  • Everyone is disgruntled with workplaces or other aspects of their life sometimes
  • Free people express this sometimes
  • If everyone involved in an organization says it’s wonderful, and you can’t find anything people it serves are willing to complain about, something is wrong
  • This is particularly the case if the wall or website is full of testimonials about how great it is
  • And also particularly the case if people are regularly required to sing songs praising the place

If there isn’t serious regard for the privacy of people the organization serves

  • For instance, if there is a description of every single resident and their activities available on a public website, something is wrong
  • If you are brought into someone’s room without their freely given consent just so you can see what the rooms look like, it’s probably an institution

“What he would have wanted”

Real Social Skills

Talking about what someone would have wanted only makes sense if that person is dead.

If the person you’re talking about is still alive, talk about what they do want.

And assume that they want to live. Almost everyone does.

Even if they’re brain damaged, even if they’re in pain, even if they have dementia, even if they no longer recognize people.

They’re still a person. They’re still there. And they still want things.

So don’t ask what they would have wanted. Ask what they do want.

About avoiding slurs

Real Social Skills

There are a lot of slurs that are so ingrained into English-speaking culture that people who say them don’t always realize that they are slurs.

  • People say them without meaning them as slurs, but they still hurt people
  • Because people also say them as intentional slurs
  • And it’s not usually obvious which is which
  • And even when people genuinely don’t mean it that way, hearing slurs about your group all the time hurts
  • Also, sometimes the people who are using the slur don’t know that the group it’s about actually exists
  • Being erased to the point that people only know about the stereotype is also really horrible

And…

  • Often when people in the target group point out the slurs, people react badly
  • Instead of apologizing and fixing it, they get angry and hostile
  • And often behave in really humiliating (or even dangerous) ways towards the person who pointed it out
  • Reacting that way is fairly similar to using a slur intentionally
  • You can’t actually invoke a trope related to the slur without also invoking the slur in ways that hurt people it’s used against
  • Even if you would never react that way, people in the target group don’t know that when you say the word.

I’m a bit uneasy about saying those words, so I’m not going to include any examples. (I’m not sure that’s the right decision, but that’s what I’m doing for this post). But if people these words are used against want to reblog with comments or send asks, that would be very welcome.