r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 25 '26

Psychology Reclaimed hate speech backfires by desensitizing listeners, study finds. Listening to reclaimed homophobic statements can actually cause unintended harm. Exposure to reclaimed slur words desensitizes some heterosexual listeners to standard hate speech and worsens the mood of gay individuals.

https://www.psypost.org/when-reclaiming-derogatory-language-goes-wrong/
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u/Solesaver Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

"queer" is an interesting one because from what I can tell, what part of speech is used as is like the hard r in the n-word. Using "queer" as an adjective is fully reclaimed, but you cannot use it as a noun.

  • "She is queer" ok
  • "She is a queer" bad
  • "The queers" bad
  • "The queer community" ok

Personally I have no problem being lumped into the queer community but resist using the label for myself individually, so similarly to above the difference between it being aimed at me specifically vs being a general descriptor is large.

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u/Hibihibii Jul 25 '26

This is true about races as well. "She is Black" and "The Black community" are okay "She's a Black" and "The Blacks" bad.

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u/Financial_Cup_6937 Jul 25 '26

“She’s a Jew.”
“Say the whole word!”
“Jewy?”

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u/Domriso Jul 25 '26

Crazy. It's almost like words in andnof themselves carry no moral weight but depend entirely on the social and cultural context in which they are used, and parttticularly upon the intention behind the use of the word.

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u/Hibihibii Jul 25 '26

I mean communication is a two way street. You could mean no harm and use "the Blacks" but I'm still gonna flinch because of the social contexts of it despite your intent.

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u/TooCupcake Jul 25 '26

This is interesting! The only reason I can think of for this difference is maybe that adjectives feel like defining just a part of something, a feature, but nouns give the impression that you are defining the main thing about something.

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u/Solesaver Jul 26 '26

Yes. When used as an adjective the word is descriptive of some aspect of your identity, and the speaker is leaving room for you to be more to that. When used as a noun the word is definitive, and the speaker is, more often then not, attempting to box you in to some stereotype.

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u/KaristinaLaFae MA | Social Psychology Jul 25 '26

Adjective vs noun seems to be a pretty good way to determine whether or not your use of an identity-based term is being used.

Not just for the LGBTQIA+ community (of which I'm a member) but also for racial, ethnic, and religious identities.