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Sure, but when you start pretending the teddy bear toy is exactly the same as a live bear animal, and demand everybody must treat them exactly the same or face exile from the society, people are entitled to push back. There might be niche meanings and specific contexts where word meanings are stretched, but that's not what the controversy is about. The controversy is about applying that stretched niche maybe-sometimes-acceptable-if-you-squint-hard-enough meaning to all contexts and using cultural and legal and governmental coercion to suppress those who point out it makes no sense, or even just dare to discuss it instead of worshipping it. When we get rid of this - and we are in no way there right now - then we can go back to discussing which exactly rare and niche contexts we can recognize and how much stretching and squinting is appropriate.
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