[Lewis.]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

"well versed in the language you can and cant use"

says who?

you seem to abe alluding to some book of guidelines or a website or something?

can you elaborate what you actually mean?

I mean it in the sense that there is language for all sorts of demographical topics, be it gender, race, religion etc that is culturally either accepted or denied as appropriate language to use when discussing said topic. This language changes over time.

There is language related to race that is completely unacceptable to use today (be it as a general cultural disapproval, or even language that would genuinely land you in legal trouble) that - 50/100 years ago - would have been widely used and not considered offensive as an overall society. As discussion has developed over time, as have expectations and cultural rules about what is and isn't considered offensive to say.

This is the same for sexuality - although that development has come in the past 25/50 years. There are things and words that my gran would say about sexuality that, as a culture in general, we would probably consider inappropriate. None of it is meant in a malicious way, but her shaping of the world happened pre this development, and her ideas as to what is and isn't considered to be appropriate is stuck in the 90s as she hasn't really been exposed to the development of the topic in the cultural 'sphere' of wrong and right.

In this particular case - with trans being the topic - this cultural development is still in a very early and very 'live' stage, and most of it is happening over social media amongst 16-30 year olds. I don't imagine that Farida will herself have been given the opportunity to discuss, learn about or partake in the development of the topic as a whole.

That's the point that I am making - there are already general ideas forming as to what language could be considered offensive to say in relation to trans men and women. It isn't a rule book, in the same way that there isn't a rule book that tells you what you can and can't say or what language you can or can't use in a public forum about race or sexuality - it's a cultural understanding of what is considered offensive or non-offensive that shifts over time within society.

That's the beauty of Big Brother and why a mixture of ages and demographics is so much more interesting to watch, because you get to see this mixture of people come together who wouldn't normally have interacted on the outside world, and watch them learn from each other through their day-to-day discussions.