I wish the article went into a little more detail about the changes themselves, because (as maybe mentioned in the article) I find those to be a little odd.
Queer, for example, I always had the impression was picked up by the LGBT community precisely because it was a fairly neutral connotation, it’s not often used as an insult or something in writing, more in line with ‘odd’ or ‘out of the usual’…but the folks I know who use the term to self identify all seem reasonably happy with that connotation. Then again, I could be entirely wrong about it; and it’s not a word I would use to refer to someone.
Lame I suppose has the connotation with physical disabilities, and dumb the same, but stupid strikes me as odd, because I had never really associated it with mental conditions the same way that the R word of yesteryear was associated.
Doesn’t mean that it can’t or shouldn’t be changed, but just seems a bit strange; was expecting the article to be about some terms that really hadn’t aged well, because lord knows there’s a lot of stuff I said as a teen or even wrote that I wouldn’t put to paper these days.
