The thing is, it’s not unfair to ask people to tag for triggers. I’m triggered by pictures of people kissing, and asked a friend to tag for kissing once. But I said, hey, I know this is a really specific trigger, and if you don’t want to tag for it I get it. It just means I can’t follow you because you post this a lot. But no hard feelings.
But when people ask us to tag our identity as a slur, they are not just asking us to tag for their trigger. They are making a statement about the validity of our chosen identifier. They are saying that what we call ourselves is inherently harmful. They don’t say “can you tag for the word queer” they say, “tag for q-slur.”
And never once has this request to me been polite. Never once has someone said, “if you aren’t willing to do it, I get it, I’ll just have to unfollow.” It’s a demand, not a request. It’s a demand that we accept their statement that our identity is something negative.
So like, if you’re traumatized by the word queer, that’s fair. There are people out there who have the same trauma with other words that aren’t slurs, like gay. But it is not fair to go on a crusade against everyone who uses the word queer. To bully us into accepting that it’s a slur.
And if you’re traumatized by certain words, then look into an app that will block posts that use those words, or block out those words. It doesn’t make sense to ask people to tag for a word when there are so many options that will allow you to not see the word at all. The only reason to be belligerent about tagging for the word queer is because you want to push your agenda on someone else.
