Even if we pretend they're exclusively using it in the way they claim, you have to acknowledge how insanely specific that is. The person would have to be crossdressing, not trans, as well intentionally trying to trick them into... being gay????
First, it does get used to refer to trans people in a hateful way. I've seen it happen online, it's awful. It continues this idea that they are the type of person it supposedly describes, which is so incorrect and insulting. The continued use of it even pushes down to people who don't understand why it's problematic or even quite what it's "supposed" to mean. A friend of mine said, talking about a canonically trans fictional character he isn't overly familiar with that he heard she was "a tr*p." He would never intentionally do this, and was apologetic when I explained it, but he was still kind of tricked into using a hateful term. If someone less informed or more malicious had explained it, he might not have understood the issue and continued to use it, thinking it really does only refer to the original definition, why would anyone use it otherwise?
Then, there's this other problem, how anime and Japanese media in general don't generally portray trans characters as obviously or positively. Often they'll be shown as if they want to be someone else, or they'll have an external motivation such as UHHH ACTUALLY THEY JUST WANTED TO BE RESPECTED IN SOCIETY. (God, Persona 4 makes me mad, and not only for that.) There's some degree of blurriness in whether anime characters are trans sometimes, and often the media doesn't quite acknowledge it even when they clearly are. I try to apply the rule of whether the character would be trans if written by a progressive writer from, say, America.
I'm just rambling here but dumb weeb nerds calling characters (and sometimes people) a slur because FUNNY! makes me so mad.
This one in particular pisses me off to no end.
Even if we pretend they're exclusively using it in the way they claim, you have to acknowledge how insanely specific that is. The person would have to be crossdressing, not trans, as well intentionally trying to trick them into... being gay????
First, it does get used to refer to trans people in a hateful way. I've seen it happen online, it's awful. It continues this idea that they are the type of person it supposedly describes, which is so incorrect and insulting. The continued use of it even pushes down to people who don't understand why it's problematic or even quite what it's "supposed" to mean. A friend of mine said, talking about a canonically trans fictional character he isn't overly familiar with that he heard she was "a tr*p." He would never intentionally do this, and was apologetic when I explained it, but he was still kind of tricked into using a hateful term. If someone less informed or more malicious had explained it, he might not have understood the issue and continued to use it, thinking it really does only refer to the original definition, why would anyone use it otherwise?
Then, there's this other problem, how anime and Japanese media in general don't generally portray trans characters as obviously or positively. Often they'll be shown as if they want to be someone else, or they'll have an external motivation such as UHHH ACTUALLY THEY JUST WANTED TO BE RESPECTED IN SOCIETY. (God, Persona 4 makes me mad, and not only for that.) There's some degree of blurriness in whether anime characters are trans sometimes, and often the media doesn't quite acknowledge it even when they clearly are. I try to apply the rule of whether the character would be trans if written by a progressive writer from, say, America.
I'm just rambling here but dumb weeb nerds calling characters (and sometimes people) a slur because FUNNY! makes me so mad.