There are plenty of words that can be used to insult someone, if your intention is to bully them. You don’t need to inflict collateral damage to insult one person. The English language is very flexible. Giving up a simple word is an act of respect.

You and everyone else downvoting in this thread are using the same logic as an alt-right dweeb who gets enraged when you “steal” bigoted language from them, or ask them not to misgender someone. Which is dumb, because you’re stealing nothing. It’s saying “Hey, that word is terrible for me hear, it brings back lots of bad memories, so out of respect could please not use it?”

Damn, people want to appear to be against oppression, racism and other things yet can’t even be bothered to modify their behavior in the simplest of ways to respect other living beings. We really are all fucked.