I recently stumbled across an article that caused me a great deal of alarm. In addition to blatant transphobia and the use of slurs, the article dismisses any accusations of intolerance as merely a difference of opinion between liberals and conservatives.

As a bisexual woman and feminist at an all-women’s college, labels and political correctness have been a big point of discussion amongst my peers and myself. Lately I’ve spent a lot of time considering the true meaning of political correctness, and wondering where the line is drawn between expressing opinions, and things that are simply offensive.

The point of being politically correct is not to restrict your ability to converse, make jokes, or have candid discussions about inflammatory issues—even if you align more with the conservative side. When we think of political correctness in terms of what is and isn’t acceptable to say, we begin to think of certain words themselves as being blacklisted, rather than reframing our mindset in a way that promotes tolerance.

Here’s what I mean. Say you’ve just been told you said something wrong. Maybe you meant no harm by what you said, but the people around you seem hurt. It can be frustrating to feel like you're in the wrong, and it may feel taxing to dodge certain phrases like landmines. However, the underlying issue is not that you said the “wrong thing.” You said something offensive because nearly everyone in this world was raised, at least to some degree, with internalized prejudices that we may not even be aware of, and these prejudices are reflected in the words we use. To build up our society without leaving marginalized groups behind, it is vital that we instead focus on the underlying causes of harmful language.

Speaking from experience, I know figuring out the “right things to say” is a learning curve. During high school I struggled with my own identity, and while my parents were wonderfully accepting and supportive, I didn’t know many people in the queer community when I was initially figuring out where I fell on the spectrum. I started attending my high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and had many candid conversations about what different identities meant and how to talk about them. I learned that “queer” is now proudly used as an identity rather than a slur; I learned that gender is a broad spectrum and not a binary; I learned that so many more identities exist besides gay, straight, and bisexual. I began picking up on subtle shifts in language that make a phrase more or less inclusive, and most importantly, I learned that I can learn so much more from people who have had different experiences than I did.

For example, the difference between saying a transgender woman “is a self-identified woman” rather than just stating that “she is a woman” is a distinction I can’t say I would have realized on my own, and I am very glad someone corrected me on that one day. The former comes from a mindset that you should respect a trans woman the way you would any other woman—despite her birth-assigned sex. It also implies that she is a woman to herself, but not necessarily to other people, because you would not describe a cis woman as “self-identified.” The latter phrase cuts out the conditional acceptance and goes straight to respecting her for who she is. In this case, the latter is politically correct because of the implications of “self-identified,” not because “self-identified” is a bad word. The essence of political correctness lies in this deeper understanding of why we say the things we do.

With today’s access to information and online communities, it is time for everyone to learn what it means to be politically correct. The “war on political correctness” is nothing more than an excuse for hate speech. There is a key difference between someone who said something politically incorrect because they did not yet know any better, and who then makes an effort to be better, and someone who rejects the whole concept under the guise of defending free speech. It is time to grow up and learn to admit when you might be wrong.