[reinaberg]

The issue becomes whether or not staff want to make the work more complicated for them or not

giving the same punishment any time someone uses a word is more complicated than deciphering whether or not someone is actually talking about cars when everyone gives the exact same excuse? interesting take

You entirely misread what I said. The more complicated part would be whether or not something is derogatory or just a reference to shorthand for car. Clearly if someone says "Shut up Tranny" they're calling someone a derogatory term.

That's an incredibly obvious example that completely evades my point. Now what if someone says "You should shoot that t-slur over there" while looking in the direction of a trans player standing in front of a car, then they proceed to RDM the player while unloading bullets into the hood of the car. Clearly they were talking about the player, but now the staff member can decide that since they don't like the trans player and their friend was the one who said it, it was just RDM with a silly joke about cars. Or, on the other hand, the staff member can warn the player and then have to deal with a 5-page forum post about how it's not fair that they got warned because they were talking about cars, then the direction in which the post goes also depends on how well-liked each player is.

Not every situation is going to clearly be one extreme or the other, so it's best to disallow use of the slur entirely.