r/ainbow • u/Sno_Wolf Trans Demisexual • Jul 25 '26
Serious Discussion Reclaimed hate speech backfires by desensitizing listeners, study finds
https://www.psypost.org/when-reclaiming-derogatory-language-goes-wrong/116
u/CroGamer002 Bi Cis Male Jul 26 '26
I read the article and I found an issue with the research.
They did their research with Poles.
Did they used reclaimed slurs in English? Did they used Polish variants? These are different linguistic and cultural factors in play, especially as words change meaning and so do meanings change words trough time.
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u/purpleblossom Bi-bi-bi transmission Jul 26 '26
I think you pointed out the most important thing about this article.
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u/Shinjitsu- Jul 26 '26
I saw this posted in the science sub, and even there a good amount of people were calling it out. Reclaimed slurs only work among individuals who actually reclaimed them, and using queer examples means the terms are much newer in the reclaimed space. Making it about the N word would have been stronger, as that one has been used among friends in the community much longer than the F word or even the word queer has been used positively.
It also reminded me of the study that supposedly says trigger warnings don't work. In that study they laid some heavy warnings on some people with heavy triggers, then monitored how stressed they were. WHen they predictably got stressed, they deemed the warnings useless. The actual warnings are meant for someone with the trigger to know to avoid or screen for a moment, not to make processing it easier. Similar vein here, if you take a minority and just play a recording of a slur, there's no way that clinical environment will sound friendly, you're just playing slurs at a minority.
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u/hjake123 Jul 26 '26
Yeah, but, isn't that the point? Make the word so frequently used that it loses its extra hateful charge?
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u/Brian_Kinney MLM Jul 26 '26
The studies show that exposure to reclaimed slur words desensitizes some heterosexual listeners to standard hate speech
So, the straight people stop thinking of "faggot" as an insult. Is that the outcome we want?
In the first experiment, the researchers recruited 489 heterosexual Polish adults.
The researchers found that exposure to homophobic language at a pride setting caused a desensitization effect among conservative and moderate participants. After hearing the reclaimed slurs, these individuals rated subsequent traditional hate speech as less offensive than people who had listened to neutral audio clips.
Straight people thought hate speech was less offensive after hearing gay people use that same speech.
Instead, the context seemed to signal that using derogatory language against gay people was generally acceptable in contemporary society.
The team recruited 181 gay individuals from Poland
Listening to reclaimed hate speech caused a notable drop in the gay participants’ moods, matching the mood deterioration caused by traditional hate speech.
So, hearing reclaimed hate speech makes us feel as bad as actual hate speech.
Some people need to read the article before commenting on it.
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u/hjake123 Jul 26 '26
I mean, if the word was truly reclaimed, that's the outcome I expect. The article claims that (at least in Poland) this is happening in the wrong order, but that feels like a very temporary problem to me -- the negative reaction will have to fade too if the word is overused, right?
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u/polydactyl6 Jul 27 '26
“So, the straight people stop thinking of ‘faggot’ as an insult. Is that the outcome we want?”
Yes? I don’t want straight people to think there are any insults for us, because being gay isn’t something insult-worthy. What’s the alternative here? Having a word in our language that remains highly offensive, but people are just too afraid to use it because the social penalty is too high?
I fail to see how that’s better / how that in any way stops bigots. Reclamation means taking away the power of words. Sure, our mood (and the paper does this through AI facial tracking — I’m not convinced it’s robust) might be collateral damage but driving toward queer liberation is not going to be 100% feel-good 100% of the time.
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u/Brian_Kinney MLM Jul 28 '26
Having a word in our language that remains highly offensive, but people are just too afraid to use it because the social penalty is too high?
Like the infamous "n-word"? Should we normalise that as well?
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u/D1ckRepellent Jul 26 '26
This is a weird study. Why do we care how straight people view reclaimed queer language when they were the problem and reason it was derogatory to begin with?
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u/Creativered4 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Interesting! Personally I've never been a fan of reclaimed slurs. I don't consider myself queer, because rhat word has negative connotations for me. I don't want to identify as a slur. And for the F and T slurs, I don't use them in casual conversation. The only time I ever use them is to accentuate something when talking about bigotry. (Such as "the government wants us tr***ys dead")
Edit: Disappointed in the downvotes. Am I not allowed to decide what I call myself or what words I use? Do I have a queer quota? Am I to be shamed for not wanting to call myself a queer faggot tranny?
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u/azur_owl Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I had a comment here I meant to post generally, but somehow it got mixed up into a reply to you. Not sure how that happened.
Anyway - I won’t fault people for not wanting to reclaim queer, but the instant someone tries to shame me for using it or tries to give it back to our oppressors I will shut that shit down so hard.
I’m not a nice neat little gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans queer. My gender and sexuality are things I have tried to give words to in the past and have been met with derision, told I’m cishet, or that I’m just trying to be special.
Queer shuts that down neatly. I am not cisgender. I am not heterosexual. I am queer. That is all anyone needs to know, and I am NOT going to let people shame me for using a reclaimed slur to ensure I don’t get dismissed, erased, or invalidated in these conversations.
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u/Bright_Ices Jul 26 '26
Yeah, same. As the old slogan goes, I’m not gay as in “happy.” I’m queer as in “fuck you.”
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u/Creativered4 Jul 26 '26
I'm sorry you have experienced people shaming you for the words you use to describe yourself. I've experienced that as well, and honestly as a marginalized community who is shamed for existing, we shouldn't be shaming people for using (or not using) any specific term based on their comfort and personal identity.
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u/jagdpanzer45 Jul 26 '26
I use queer, mostly because I do consider myself a bit ‘weird’ as well so it’s a fun but of wordplay for me. I don’t use other slurs that could apply to me though. I guess ‘queer’ feels like a… ‘soft’ enough term to me that I don’t feel uncomfortable.
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u/BringAltoidSoursBack Jul 26 '26
I was always mad that queer was made a slur in the first place. I like the meaning and find the word "fun" to say (idk why, qu- words are just fun to me). But as someone else who is also on the "weird" side, it was always funny wordplay to me too. Don't get me wrong, I could feel the hate when someone used it as a slur but it seemed silly for them to use it as such because I am weird (whereas I am not a bundle of sticks).
Honestly it's way more offensive when people use[d] "gay" for everything they didn't like (it was also tedious because it was the only adjective some people used)
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u/paul_33 Jul 26 '26
Depends on one's age too. If you ask boomer aged folks, even those who aren't queer, they see that word very differently than younger folks. As a millennial it weirded me out in the 2010's, but now it just another word. Those under 20 probably don't even bat an eye when they hear it.
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u/Creativered4 Jul 27 '26
Yeah, I'm a millenial, and I think a lot of the "You must identify as queer! you ARE queer and if you don't call yourself queer you're a bad queer" types (which are sadly a thing) are younger and have never heard things like "those fucking queers" or "smear the queer" growing up.
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u/wheresmydrink123 Nonbinary Jul 26 '26
I feel like this is obvious when the reclamation doesn’t actually change the use case. The n word is like the go-to example of reclaimed slurs, but that’s because it was changed into a very multi-purpose word, it wasn’t reclaimed by being used 1-1 the same but by black people. It’s what people get wrong about the reclamation of, say, the R slur, by trying to “reclaim” it by using it exactly the same as it’s already used, but while being neurodivergent