I've only read parts of it, but this thread feels like a breath of fresh air - just the gentle, nuanced riposte needed to the perception of language and debate as "unsafe".
This appropriation of "unsafe" to mean "comfortable / not challenging", and even the more important "not emotionally distressing", really, really worries me.
It struck home when I saw it in a primary school catering for kids with limited English. A big sign clearly using the word "safe" in this new, "progressive" sense: something like, "Kindness is important - keep our school a safe space for all". And I thought: just like that, you've made them less safe, by removing the key piece of vocabulary they need to express the concept of physical danger and risk. What may a kid with limited English say, if he's being punched in the toilets or kicked on the field, and is scared to come to school? "I don't feel safe here," of course. Except, now, there's scope for ambiguity and misinterpretation there that didn't exist before. "Safe" is no longer a clear red light that indicates severe physical threat. It's gone.
Yes, it's important we can describe emotional and mental risk - we all know "sticks and stones etc." is a load of rubbish and words can hurt, too. But we need the full range of vocabulary necessary to make these key distinctions!
We see the same issue with "woman" and "female" in the Fife case - that a court can debate whether the claimant has the right even to speak the language necessary to describing her complaint is, frankly, Orwellian.
I noticed it also came up in the Fife case on another, more subtle, level when the Respondents' barrister argued that there's no difference between "intimidated" and "scared". Really? I mean, really? Do you understand how language works?! Of course you do, given your job. Which therefore exposes what's really driving this - the Orwellian use of language to degrade thought and debate, in court and society more widely.
OK, language exists to manipulate and question, and language evolves - that's what language is. But this unashamed denial of shared meaning, and the forceful imposition of politicised newspeak in the name of what's right and good? It's authoritarian.
ETA On reflection, these shifts in language are ironic, too, in that they're driven by privilege and ignorance: the academic elite, the do-gooder educated middle classes and cossetted political class. We're very fortunate that we've reached a point in western society where some members of these demographics feel that this word is not longer needed for physical safety, and they can arrogate it to describe their political concerns. Ditto woman, and female. But this is a mark of their privilege - the underprivileged need these words (and see that anyone could too, any day, there but for the grace of... etc.)
"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable."
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.”