Thread:User talk:WaitingforGodot/Transgender vs transgendered/reply (4)

For the same reason slurs are reclaimed. A straight person can't call a gay person a fag, but it's more acceptable within the gay community. Same for other slurs like "tranny." The ultimate goal is for these terms to be reappropriated for society at large, like what has mostly happened with "queer," but that takes aeons.

You're right about "colored people" and "Native American." The better point in that piece was that "transgendered" isn't supposed to be used by journalists, which we are after a fashion.