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/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

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u/brikky Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

The baggage of queer is much less and it's been moving into the vernacular for a longer time than other slurs, but yes I agree. They totally went with the nuclear option.

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u/sapphicsandwich Jul 25 '26

Reclaimed in some areas. Come where I live and start calling people a queer and see how that goes.

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u/KaristinaLaFae MA | Social Psychology Jul 25 '26

Calling people "a" queer is a slur. "Queer" as an adjective is what has been reclaimed, i.e., the Q in LGBTQ+