Hurtful word?

I think the problem with continually changing the words we use to describe a state of being as a reaction to individuals abusing the use of those words is that it doesn't address any of the actual issues: ignorance, cruelty, misinformation, discrimination... sometimes outright fear?

I actually would point to the use of the word retarded in this sense.
The word retarded has been a legitimate diagnostic term for quite a long time. Since it originated in the Latin language, this makes quite a bit of sense. But the recent movement to change the diagnostic language from "retarded", "mentally retarded", "retardation" and "mental retardation" to all kinds of variations of "intellectual disability" or "intellectually disabled".

I fail to see, in the long run, how this actually will help anyone.
You are changing the word, but not the people. They will catch on.

In WWII, because of local practice in Africa, German soldiers considered it good luck to run over fresh camel dung with their tanks. When the allies got wind of this, they began putting land mines in the piles of fresh camel dung. As the mines became more frequent, the Germans adjusted their "luck" practices and only ran over piles that were older. The allies, noticing the change, proceeded to adjust their plans and focused on those piles as well.

Everyone adjusts.
If you don't get at the root of the behavior, everyone will continue to fling crap. People who are afraid or ignorant or downright malicious don't much care if it's new crap or old crap.

Personally .... Both my son and Husband have Aspergers Syndrome, we all use the term 'Aspie' affectionately. To us it's just like shortening someones name. We are members of many many support groups both here and online and I have never heard anyone complain that they didn't like the term. We all use it as it's easier to say My Aspie ... rather than " My son with Aspergers syndrome " ..... that said, we only use it in company of others who know and understand, if I was meeting someone new for example I would say .. " My son has Aspergers Syndrome ".

If someone who didn't have ASD or a family member with ASD came up to me and told me they found the term offensive I would be interested to know why as they have no actual day to day dealing with the syndrome and therefore in my opinion have no right to judge someone who does.

I'm Impressed that you took the time to air your feelings and ask those who do deal with it

On terminology and stigma: Ah, I finally found this essay I posted back in January. No wonder it took me so long. It was on another site, not this one. But here it is, and I think it applies.

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Here's what was running through my mind as I took care of the litter boxes today.

Let's examine my cat, Alex. There is nothing wrong with him, and a lot right with him. He's a wonderful cat, and a cat is a perfectly noble thing to be. Therefore, it's completely acceptable to refer to him as a cat, right? I love my cat.

Now let's attach a stigma to it. Let's say society has determined that there is something subtly wrong with being like Alex. To be Alex makes you somehow less acceptable, and gets you less respect, while being compared to Alex is an assault on dignity. All over the place, we would hear "cat" as an insult. "That was a totally catlike thing to do." "Ah, what else can you expect from a cat?" "Mommy, at school they're calling me a cat. Am I a cat?" "Of course you're not a cat. Don't be silly. Whoever called you a cat was just being mean." "Don't call me a cat. I am NOT a cat!" In this environment, we still have Alex, who is in fact a cat, and always will be a cat. But we love him, and we don't want him to endure the shame and the rejection. So we come up with another word. "Let's not say Alex is a cat. Let's say he is a feline." Then "cat" becomes essentially a swear word, and they start censoring it out of support websites.

This works for a while, but soon people catch on that "cat" and "feline" are the same thing. Now "feline" becomes the insult. "That was a feline thing to do." "Mommy, am I a feline?" "Don't call me a feline."

Still we have Alex, and still we love him. Still we don't want to shame him or use a word that may insult him. So now we can't call him a cat or a feline. Where do we go from there? Is he now a whiskered citizen? A miniature lion? A speaker of meow? Are we going to borrow a word from another language and start saying "gato" or "koshka" or "gorbe" or "popoki"? We're probably not going to go to "felid" now, because that's too close to "feline."

I don't think the particular word of choice is the real problem. I think the real problem is that we need to realize, stigma is an imaginary construct. Because we see that there is nothing bad about Alex being exactly what he is, that's why we can call him a cat and say it with pride. Now, why can't we do the same thing with humans who are somehow marginalized for being what they are? Why can't we just stop using the concepts of being mentally ill, or having a low IQ, or being homosexual, as an insult. Then we won't have to come up with politically correct alternatives to describe people who really are those things.

I agree with this 100% but whenever I've made this argument to a therapist or other I have never been validated and there are usually things implied that indicate there is a nuance that I failed to see. This is exactly my problem with social interactions. And it's not just that I don't know everything I'm expected to know, but that I pick up things others don't want acknowledged--and it's hard to tell what is what. I've just recently started thinking about this in terms of myself tending to focus on the negative aspect of the info being relayed. I do catch myself at times more focused on reading between the lines--a practice that I used in childhood to protect myself often.

I guess the difference is in how it's being used. Until I was told I probably have Asperger's and started looking for a community such as this one, I had not encountered the term. I probably wouldn't use it to describe myself or anyone else to someone not already familiar with the term, because then I'd have to explain it, but with people familiar with the term it seems to cut out extraneous noise.