One of my neighbors in my old city explained that playing video games is how he found out he had a seizure disorder, and since that incident in the 90s hadn’t played a video game.
Normal humans who play video games might respond and say “damn, that sucks. If you ever decide to give them a try, here are resources so you can avoid games that might trigger that”. G*mers say “haha fuck you and your rich and fulfilling family life, you’re a loser who can’t play video games”.
And yes, I did supply him with some info about resources for games that don’t cause seizures. He said thanks, and then we went back to watching our kids play, and to my knowledge he didn’t play video games again.
Neil Gaiman wrote this years ago, and it’s something I try to remember when these conversations come up:
"I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.”
Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile.
You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.
I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”
Literally costs you nothing to treat someone with respect by using their chosen pronouns.