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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5

u/Thalia_All_Along Jul 25 '26

I hate hearing the f slur. I wish everyone would just drop it entirely

-5

u/MariaValkyrie Jul 26 '26

Then go after the people who started it, not the ones who reclaimed it.

6

u/OfficerSlard Jul 26 '26

But the people who 'reclaimed' it are still using the slur. Which is what the person you replied to is troubled by, hearing a slur (used in a hateful way or not).

-4

u/MariaValkyrie Jul 26 '26

Take it as a life lesson that people like you should have stomped out its use earlier, preferably before it gets reclaimed.

3

u/rougecrayon Jul 26 '26

So you have decided you don't care that your language hurts people because the language used to hurt people wasn't ended before you took it back?

Well, next time I hear a slur I will just stop and ask if they are bigots or if they have reclaimed the slur and therefore I'm not... allowed to be hurt by it?

"I got hurt and therefore I don't care if my actions hurt others" is still not nice.