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In another area of C-D someone posted the slang word tranny is a slur to a transgender person. It seems to me it is a logical way of being informal. Supposedly, using trans is acceptable, but not tranny which seems to be splitting hairs. I try to be sensitive to such things, but sometimes it gets to be too much. I learned to say Asian rather than Oriental and certain other words which were deemed unacceptable. I realize this is the age of super-sensitivity, but, does anyone know why tranny is a slur?
Diminutives tend to be frowned upon except in personal relationships where they are terms of endearment. Call a guy Dickie, and he is likely to come back with "Call me Richard!"
Also, if you call someone a tranny, you don't know if they are stick shift or not.
In another area of C-D someone posted the slang word tranny is a slur to a transgender person. It seems to me it is a logical way of being informal. Supposedly, using trans is acceptable, but not tranny which seems to be splitting hairs. I try to be sensitive to such things, but sometimes it gets to be too much. I learned to say Asian rather than Oriental and certain other words which were deemed unacceptable. I realize this is the age of super-sensitivity, but, does anyone know why tranny is a slur?
Uh huh.
In much the same way that 'homo' is just an informal, totally-not-derogatory shortening of homosexual?
Oh, let me guess - as with 'tranny', objections to 'homo' are just another example of super-sensitivity, right?
In much the same way that 'homo' is just an informal, totally-not-derogatory shortening of homosexual?
Oh, let me guess - as with 'tranny', objections to 'homo' are just another example of super-sensitivity, right?
Absolutely!
In another forum, in a very long thread, while defending the rights of gays and after typing out homosexual about a dozen times, I started abbreviating it.
Why is it the short version, "hetero" is not taken as derogatory?
So yeah, it is the context that matters, not the abbreviation.
Brevity is probably why the word 'gay' was adopted.
This is the WRITING forum. Unless you want to try to take it to declensions, what little literary merit the subject has has been exhausted. Maybe the entire thread needs to be moved?
This is the WRITING forum. Unless you want to try to take it to declensions, what little literary merit the subject has has been exhausted. Maybe the entire thread needs to be moved?
I wish I'd never started it. I had no idea my question would be offensive. How could I possibly not know it wouldn't be acceptable? It's even wrong to mention this is an age of super-sensitivity, which in an of itself, should have told me not to ask questions.
However, the writing forum includes the subject of words and it didn't occur to me that asking my question here would also be a mistake.
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