But we're not talking about two isolated subcultures that have stumbled into using the same series of letters to mean different, subculture-specific pieces of jargon. The context in which "trap" means this one, specific weeb thing exists within the world in which it's a transphobic offensive slur. The explicitly transphobic use is not an alternative jargon, it is the conventional usage; the usage within anime fandom is a specific application of that usage.
It's not really enough to point out that anime "traps" are mostly cis-gendered cross-dressers, because as a general rule, transphobes reject the claim of trans people to identify otherwise than their birth-assigned gender, and therefore categorise trans people as, essentially, cross-dressers. The difference, from the transphobe's perspective, is whether the "trap" understands that they are a cross-dresser, or whether they are invested in what the transphobe would see as the "delusion" of a trans identity. The usage is functional identical from the transphobe's perspective, whatever caveats the anime fan might add about their own rejection of non-transphobia, so we're not on stable ground demanding that trans people accepting these distinctions. It's not clear that we can expect trans people to recognise this supposed nuance when people who hate trans people sure as hell won't.
Now this is a post that actually addresses what I wrote - thank you! I do disagree with your argument however, because I do not see both as the same thing. The word trap makes sense in the context of the anime genre, because the context in anime is literally that you're being trapped into thinking, by the creators of the series, that a character is of a sex that they are not. A trap character is not, for example, "a man who feels like they're a woman and therefor presents as female", it's simply a "man who
is presented as a woman", and might have a number of reasons for doing so - or sometimes doesn't have any reasons, and is just presented that way by the creators of the anime. This does, once again, not refer to trans individuals.
An accusation that you might reasonably level at the genre is that it is, for the most part, blind towards actual trans individuals, and due to this blindness, actually provides a potential "safe haven" for transphobes. I do agree that this is potential problem with the genre, but at the same time, the big trap anime communities have very strict content rules when it comes to that, to make sure that those potential "safe havens" don't manifest into actual safe havens. If you look into the trap anime community, you see people who celebrate trap anime characters, not people who say:
"Eww, but trans people, right? Icky!"
I'm prepared to back up from my original statement and concede that the use in anime fandom may not be "repugnant", insofar as it isn't meant with any inherent malice. But I don't think that a term which would otherwise be understood as an offensive slur becomes acceptable because a particular subculture has adopted it as jargon. Something does not need to be wicked for it to be a mistake; something does not need to be malicious for you to stop doing it.
Yeah, but again... if you concede that, then the trap anime community has used the word since... forever. As I learned today, the pejorative use of the word actually originated from trap anime (which I didn't know, but have looked up and it seems to be true). They have not "reclaimed" the word, it is a word that is inherent to their vocabulary and refers to a different thing. You do not "own" the word, that's the point. You are ascribing an inherent value to the word, but the word does not have that, it is the context in which a word is being used that determines the meaning, and therefor the value.
Saying that they have to stop using the word in their context, because in your context it's offensive to you, simply does not seem reasonable to me. Reasonable to me, would be to say: "Okay, if they use it in their context, then that's not something that I should care about." - the moment a person uses it to refer to a trans individual, that's a different story.
So you have a non-derogatory (in your opinion) use of the word, therefore everyone should accept that use and not be offended by the use of the word. Gotcha.
No, you still haven't understood what I said, I'm still not saying that you should "not be offended by the use of the word", I'm saying that you should "not be offended if the word is used outside of the context that you find offensive". Again, you would not get offended at a pest controller for saying that he's going to lay out a
trap, would you?
Maybe that's a
cultural difference, but I generally expect people to realize when they're having an emotional reaction at some point, and then take a step back to actually look at the overall picture that they've missed. It has been a day now and you're still claiming I'm making an argument that I did not even come close to making.