I’m not trying to say you are. Nor am I trying to attack you for wanting to change the words you use to avoid hurting people. Not wanting to hurt people is a good thing. The point is that the words themselves aren’t the problem. The actual stigma that fuels ableism is. As I said there was a time when what we now know as the r-slur was the attempt to destigmatize those kinds of mental disabilities. In time it’s entirely likely that some or all of today’s inclusive language might be seen as too derogatory and something different will take its place.

There will always be bad actors who seek to misuse that desire to not hurt others. Whether that’s the person willfully twisting the language that tries to destigmatize into something that hurts, or someone being performatively offended by someone not using the exact correct terminology and implying their own moral superiority.

The point is that at a certain point policing language does nothing to combat ableism. Relabeling a thing on its own tends to do very little to lessen the stigma of that thing.