Thank you for that perspective.
I find it interesting, because where is the expectation that we get over something, and something being offensive? The fact you were originally annoyed suggests to me there is at base offence, which you had to learn to deal with. But there are likely to be those who don't, there will always be this little niggle that this an imposition that they have to put up with. Just like in the past black people had to put up with the n- word and women with sexual harassment.
Which is a way of saying that the basic principle we should just deal with it could in theory exist for absolutely anything - including of course terms which this forum itself will censor into asterisks, such as the n- word. Even many people who defend the right to use these terms more freely don't pretend that they aren't deeply offensive, and would not themselves use those terms in polite company for that reason. So what is the point where something potentially offensive is a thing offended individuals just have to deal with, or something it should be some degree of wrong for someone to say?
I don't pretend to have an answer, and as above I'm no paragon of virtue myself on the issue. But when people complain about the censoriousness of progressive busybodies complaining about how they talk, I think those progressives often have a point, because they taking rules about how society already deems it appropriate to talk to/about some people, and extending those principles to other people in a logically consistent way.
I think why it might cause some initial offense sometimes comes in a small little package of even smaller reasons. At least in my case, it was mainly little bits of emotional baggage from growing up. IE, family and educators who overemphasized it and brought it up far more frequently than was necessary, as well as any family drama I had to put up with growing up.
I got over most of that baggage by the time I was more or less able to be my own man. I found what worked for me treatment-wise, and at that point in my life I didn't have as many people bringing it up all the time. It was my own problem to take care of, not someone else's.
Based on that, I think the bottom line was how sometimes people were overly focused on those little traits and forgot to treat you like... you. An actual living and breathing person perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. And in a way, I actually find the... overly protective measures often employed to safeguard people against offense, to actually be not too dissimilar from the kind of special treatment people would often try to hoist on me. I didn't ask for it, didn't necessarily need it, and don't really want it.
Maybe I'd feel differently if I was in a worse place and not quite so "over it", but then, protecting me from offense wouldn't really be of much help to the actual issues I had plaguing me now, would it? Admittedly, I really don't know how I'd feel if people had been actively going out of their way to insult or ridicule me over said labels. Maybe less offended due to the sheer absurdity? Certainly more if my course of treatment options was being systematically targeted and eliminated (which has been something of a growing issue, but more due to cost-cutting, lack of quality assurance/oversight, and corporate ineptitude).
(I'll consider this a blanket response for the rest of the discussion that I was a bit late on responding to as well)
