You don’t get to decide that. By your logic, if I was to bully a person online and say that “my words were harmless, I didn’t do anything wrong” I would be fundamentally correct. And that’s an incredibly damaging and downright limited mindset to have. You do not get to decide what others see as harmful or not. You can attempt to make the claim that there’s nothing inherently harmful about what you are saying, and that people are choosing to take offense to something that is otherwise not offensive. But I don’t think that there’s very much supporting evidence for that claim. Telling someone to kill themselves, generalizing a large group of people as “weird”, “not as good”, “pathetic”, “stupid”, etc. or saying “down with [group]” or “kill all [group]” are likely going to be deemed as inherently offensive. If you disagree then I present you with:

“Kill all Jews”, “down with Jews”,

“kill all Asians”, “down with Asians”,

“kill all blacks”, down with “blacks”, etc.





The truth is that cisgendered and heterosexual people can be hurt just as much by the words that LGBT people say online as LGBT people can be hurt by the words that cisgendered and heterosexual people say online. Because both groups are still people. Just because cisgendered and heterosexual individuals are part of the majority does not make them immune from low self-esteem, and does not mean that they react to criticism differently. It is entirely possible for a cisgendered or heterosexual person to commit suicide due to cyber bullying, entirely possible for a cisgendered or heterosexual person to self-harm due to cyber bullying, entirely possible for a cisgendered or heterosexual person to have low self-esteem partially caused through cyber bullying, etc. And it is entirely possible for LGBT individuals to be the bullies. Sure, your words can be harmless. I will not ever deny that. But they can also be harmful. Just because you are criticizing the majority does not give you carte blanche to say whatever you want with no repercussions.





Cisgendered and heterosexual people are still people and people respond very, very similarly to instances of cyber bullying, insults, denouncements, etc. Just as some LGBT people can shrug off insults, so can some cisgenered and heterosexual people. But some can’t. So, when you say “down with cis”, when you say that “hets are gross” when you start talking about “heterocaptivity” or any of those other tings that can be construed as hurtful please keep in mind that someone is probably being hurt by what you are saying. Should that stop you from saying what you want to say? Maybe not. But you should at least consider that fact. I’m not saying you don’t experience oppression. I’m saying that your oppression or lack thereof is entirely meaningless here. The fact that you are marginalized does not mean that you can’t be hurtful or hateful. And I’m sick and tired of having to say that.





@thesocialjusticecourier, anything to add?