If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?
Cha. Cha. Changes.
I’m willing to bet most people answer this with something petty or personal. I took it further.
What if the most significant cultural shift we could make toward closing social divides was linguistic?
Not censorship.
Not speech policing.
Something more radical.
What if slurs had never existed at all?
No bans. No fines. No trouble. No moral word patrol. Just never here.
A world where language built to dehumanize could never be a thing.
Slurs Are Not Just Insults
Let’s clarify something immediately.
This is not about fragility.
It is not about being unable to handle criticism and mean words.
This is not about outlawing profanity. Did you know I fucking love cuss words?
It’s the damn truth!
Call someone a bitch,
an asshole,
a dickhead, a cunt.
Those are behavioral critiques.
You can choose not to act like one.
A slur is different.
A slur targets identity.
Race. Sexual orientation.
Gender identity. Disability.
Ethnicity. Immigration status.
Addiction history. Mental health.
A slur does not attack what someone did.
It attacks who someone is.
This distinction matters.
Profanity vents emotion.
Slurs enforce hierarchy.
While also compressing complex diverse human beings into stereotypes. They reduce full lives into caricatures. Their function is not expression, merely dominance.
When the Slurs Are Yours
This is not theoretical for me.
I was called a dyke for over half my life. I was openly dating women. So it wasn’t a lie, but they meant it to sting . They were wanting somehow to diminish me.
I have been called a tranny hundreds of times. I am a transgender man. This slur is designed to frame identity as deception, as something absurd or fraudulent. It is meant to stab, deep, and painfully.
Ironically, I used it myself on Instagram for over a year.
Reclaimed it. Twisted it. Cremated its power. That_Tranny_Axton was once a thing. So cis bitches like you didn’t say it to me.
I have been called a faggot by someone who decided I had to be gay.
She was a nurse. I was her aide. We were mid conversation about my fiancé, Kelsey.
She stopped me and asked, “Wait?! Who is Kelsey? You aren’t gay?”
“No,” I said. “Straight.”
She insisted I must be bi. A few moments later, loudly announced to coworkers that I had to be “a flaming fucking faggot.”
Her evidence?
I drive a Civic. Her man has a truck.
I am shorter and slimmer he’s tall and thick.
I do not resemble her estranged husband. Not every straight man does and I pointed that out.
Different slurs. Different moments.
One tried to shame desire.
One tried to invalidate identity.
One tried to police masculinity.
Different words. Same architecture.
Reduction.
The Reclaiming Slurs- The Limits
Nearly every marginalized community has members who attempt reclamation.
Reshaping the hate and slurs into humor, solidarity, language, turning a weapon wisdom and, a badge of survival.
But origin stories matter.
Reclaimed slurs were still born in violence. Forged in the very systems that need linguistic tools to justify exclusion.
Do be fully aware and prepared for the cold. The locals will look at you like you’re insane so you’ll fit right in. “This is not Under that Slur.” We welcome reclamation, as a personal choice, and we will be right back.
Tip
You cannot reclaim a slur that was never used against you.
You never carried it.
You do not get to wear it.
Acknowledging reclamation does not erase harm.
It shows resilience.
Slurs as Social Division Tools
Slurs are not random.
They are socially efficient, and great to either divide or bring together from other groups.
Instead of questioning concentrated wealth and political power, people end up fighting over identity politics.
Minority versus minority.
Neighbor versus neighbor.
It is not trans versus o ya Katey.
Not gay V straight.
Not immigrant versus citizen.
Not one race versus another.
The structural divide is ordinary people versus concentrated power.
Billionaires. Corporate consolidation. Political systems that benefit the elite.
Dehumanizing language keeps conflict horizontal. It keeps anger misdirected. A fractured population is easier to manipulate.
Slurs are cheap fuel for that fracture.
The Language, Systems, and Power
Erasing slurs would not dismantle patriarchy overnight. It would not eliminate racism or transphobia or ableism by magic.
Language alone does not create injustice.
Language does however reinvigorate or reignite it.
If dehumanizing language becomes anymore normalized, policy follows. Social exclusion follows. Violence can follow.
Slurs are rhetorical shortcuts to saying, you are less than me.
Remove the shortcut, and the hierarchy has to work harder to justify itself.
The A Tip for a World Where Slurs Still Exist
We cannot cremate vocabulary. Vocabulary is mine retroactively?
But it was a good kind
What we can do is strip slurs of visible impact.
Bullies thrive on reaction. When they do not get it, they grow bored.
Reclamation is one strategy. Indifference is another. Education is another.
The key is refusing to internalize a word designed to shrink you.
Cremate the power, even if you cannot cremate the word.
H2: Why This Is About Equality for All
This is not about protecting one group.
It is about protecting the idea that identity is not a flaw.
Equality means all.
Not just y’all.
Every time we reduce someone to a slur, we narrow the circle of who counts as fully human.
And in a world already stratified by wealth and influence, narrowing that circle only strengthens the top.
Conclusion
If I could ban a category of words, it would be slurs.
Not to police speech.
Not to posture moral superiority.
Not because language alone fixes injustice.
But because I know what those words are built to do.
They are not tools of truth.
They are tools of harm.
We deserve arguments without dehumanization.
We deserve accountability without reduction.
We deserve solidarity that cannot be shattered by a single word.
If I had a time machine, I would erase slurs at their origin.
Since I do not, I will keep challenging them where they stand.
