It’s beyond time to stop asking the abused people to tolerate abuse …

I wish people could open their empathy just a smidgen more, and recognize something simple. When you insult someone with racist, sexist, homophobic and other language, it’s an attack. A lot of people are in denial about this, and excuse their own behavior.

But truthfully, whenever someone uses that kind of language to abuse someone, they know exactly what they’re doing. Anyone who denies that is living in denial. The most typical gaslight from someone that abuses other people takes the form of either, “it’s just a joke, lighten up,” or, “it’s not abuse, it’s just words.”

The person saying this knows it’s not true. But they like abusing people, so they convince themselves otherwise. They also pretend that they don’t like abusing people, or having the right to abuse people.

When you hear an insult that someone uses to attack your personhood, the most typical feeling is fear. Because that language is an attack, and you may, at some point, have been verbally abused or physically assaulted by someone who used that language on you. It’s a signal. To deal with this fear, you may have worked through to other feelings or responses. One of those responses might be anger. I’ve seen men get angry because someone else said they had small genitals, to the point of fists. I’ve seen those…