the movement to treat h*m*sexual as a slur (censored bc this is an open question and i don’t want to alienate the people I’m asking for opinions) is really surreal because like, i was a few years too young to see the shift from transsexual to transgender happen and i didn’t think i’d actually start to see another shift like that

and like. i already don’t really use the term generally because it’s icky to a lot of people, and gay will work as a replacement the vast majority of the time. but i have so many questions about how it’s meant to work?

are bisexual and pansexual also slurs? if so, do the abbreviations bi and pan have to change, or is it just when the sexual suffix is used?

if it’s the h*m* prefix, what about h*m*phobia? It doesn’t make any sense to censor our oppression, any more than censoring the words patriarchy or racism. so does it need to be renamed gayphobia or something similar? which i honestly think has way too much inertia to ever change: it’s such a basic word that even your layman straight person knows it, in a way that biphobia and transphobia haven’t reached. even if it’s just to say ‘how dare you call me that, i am a perfect ally’. treating it as a slur on the same level as d*ke or something means reeducating pretty much every straight person on the planet if we want a replacement term to catch on, and telling straight people not to use slurs hasn’t worked out for us so far