I have noticed that this is another one of those areas in which most of us are always going to be wrong. Always using the wrong pronoun, consistently behind on what the most recent respectful terminology is. Almost makes you not wanna try.

I apologize for the lack of editing and brevity here, I havent slept much this week, but felt the need to comment here within a reasonable period of time since Dan's response was posted. First of all, I think that one of the things that would make everyone a lot happier, would be to see Dan stop making excuses and explanations, and JUST apologize plain and simple. Dan, you know you've used hurtful and oppressive language in the past and have continued to; please just say you are sorry and that you will work on it, with no witty remarks to lesson the seriousness of your apology. I think if you approached things like that from the beginning, it wouldnt have escalated further and further over the years. Yes, we have worse 'enemies', but we dont have many real allies; even within this supposed 'LGBT community.' Many of us looked up to you as someone who might eventually treat us with some respect instead of getting petty (not to say that the glitterbombers didnt themselves, just saying some hold you to a higher standard than college student protesters because of your position and power within this 'community.' You really *could* do a lot to bring us all together and to teach people how to speak about trans people and related issues. just like you have with the issues faced by many sexual minorities!

So, the fact is, people should be free to reclaim words used against them; there is no problem with trans women deciding to use the word they want to reclaim to describe themselves... but the fact is, anyone using the term to describe others is contributing to the oppression of trans people and is furthering a problematic stereotype. The easiest way to explain this; I would never presume to call any gay friends "Faggots" because I have not lived my life as a gay man. I think its offensive to act like its okay to decide what words are okay or not to describe an oppressed group of people. White people don't get to decide when is acceptable use of the n-word, and the same should go for non-queer women calling people dykes, and so on...
By saying you think it should be okay to use an oppressive word because its being used all the time in *exploitative porn* is so contradictory its absurd, and just as ridiculous as the argument 'my friend calls herself a s-word and SHES TRANS! so chill out guys' No, no, no. This is trans-feminism & anti-oppression 101... I am not blaming people for being new to this and just make a mistake, but please at least try to be respectful of people who have struggled their entire lives with being part of a stigmatized and oppressed demographic.
Its hard enough to get through life being trans; anyone with an ounce of compassion must at least see that... right?
I find it hard to see how any person, privileged or not, trans or not, would feel like its not worth taking a few hours of their life to educate themselves on how talk to and about an oppressed group with a modicum of respect. Especially when they are looked up to as a role model by those individuals and those in connected communities, eg. "minorities" and "LGPT peoples" especially.

If I had to sum it up to one sentence it would be this token I picked up while educating myself: "It should never be the responsibility of an oppressed group, to inform those outside that group, what words are oppressive."

drama queens stirring up the wrong kind of shit because there aren't any office-seeking republicans in town... i signed the petition just so i could comment about how ridiculous and stupid this all is! wrong fight, ladies and gentelmen.