LAST EDITED ON Aug-07-13 AT 04:44 PM (EDT)
 
I tried to post this as a comment over in G's LJ, but it kept rejecting it as spam. I figure it's worth saying, though:

You're quite correct that there's been a lot of changes to social discourse over the past several years. It's meant that a lot of things that marginalized people just sort of rolled with, or bore with gritted teeth... they don't want to have to do that any more. It also means that a lot of things that the privileged group -- here in the US, that's (functionally) heterosexual, cisgendered, white males -- once thought were acceptable and just jokes (or whatever) have been revealed as, well, not.

You didn't meant to cause offense. Sure. We get that. We know that. But we're putting down a line and saying we're going to stop pretending we're okay with $OFFENSIVE_THING. (In my case, that's "jokes" related to gender identity and sexual identity, in terms of personal stuff.) You don't have to explain that it was never a problem before, because we know you never knew it was a problem before. You just want your dinner, so to speak.

If you want to save those friendships? Just apologize. Try to understand that it was offensive, and why, even if it was not your intention to offend.

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding