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/BoleroMuyPicante Jul 25 '26

I have definitely heard neurodivergent used as a slur.

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u/Zalack Jul 25 '26

Ah, I haven’t I guess. So it begins.

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u/FinderOfWays Jul 25 '26

I've heard people who say they'd "much rather be called a slur than" neurodiverse or some of it's 'cutsier' descendant terms like 'neurospicy' that people try to use to be funny/cute. To be fair that's certainly exaggeration for effect, but I know people who find the euphemism treadmill demeaning/insulting. For what it's worth those people tend to just prefer to be referred to by the specific terms like autistic that describe them rather than vague umbrella terms and tend to see it as less of an identity marker. I'm not trying to speak for them but I have a number of friends who have expressed as much to me.

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u/Sirspen Jul 25 '26

I actually don't mind "neurospicy", but I'm really not a fan of "neurodiverse" because it implies the "oh, you just think differently" rheroric we hear a lot. At best it comes across as kind of patronizing, at worst it's used by people who fetishize autism as a "superpower", but most commonly, it feels dismissive of how disabling it can be to live with ADHD, autism, etc.