Of course there are grey areas Pou. The definition itself has to have weasel words because the concept of 'Political Correctness' is opaque and pretty f**ken stupid if you ask me.
Different people will perceive the same thing in different ways. Some people will think that they are disadvantaged when they aren't. Some people will argue that they've been discriminated against when others will believe they haven't.
Trying to second guess all of that and risk offending someone is too much to think about. I just prefer to operate under the simple mantra of 'Don't be a merkin'...which I regularly fail (because I am a merkin).
So now that we've established that it is stupid and shouldn't be a thing, there's only one problem - it is a thing.
So if it is a thing it probably needs a definition. How do you define something so stupid? This example below isn't a bad one.
the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.
There is always going to be whiney pricks who think that the world is against them. This is nothing new, you only have to listen to the blue rinse set at the local lawn bowls club who are all gold star whingers. So you don't have to be an unemployed trans greenie with a spastic non-gender muslim antivax child to feel that you are being marginalised.
"Don't be a merkin" is certainly a great mantra and with that we will all go a long way in being respectful and considerate to the people around you. Most people are too quick to judge and do not apply a reasonable level of empathy to those who are seeking validation.
I think that added to "don't be a merkin" mantra should also be "walk a mile in another man's shoes". You are not the centre of the universe and shit is happening to others that causes them angst. Empathy is free, use it and use it outside your tribe.
Being Anti-PC/free speech seems to have been born from the right of politics. It goes way back to the far right of the LNP who fought hard to have S18C of the Racial Discrimination Act repealed. This movement started when Andrew Bolt wrote a column about a bloke who he claimed was "too white to be indigenous". Thus dismissing his right to argue anything on behalf of his community. He was prosecuted and lost that case on appeal. From then on, being anti-pc/free speech was on the agenda for the right of politics. Gillian Triggs (Head of the Human Rights Commission) was the devil woman and Pauline Hanson pined for the days that you could call your fruit shop owner "a Mediterranean Descendant and he would just get on with it".
The anti-pc brigade always fall into depths of silence when they are asked "what do you want to say, that you are now prevented to say ? ". "How really has being PC changed your daily life ?" You can actually say what what you like in private and will be supported or condemned by your peers accordingly. There are no thought police ready to knock down your door and push you into a black van. So what is it ?
There is also a level of hypocrisy in the anti-pc/free speech movement that grates my gears. The very people who wish for these laws to be wound back, spewed bile when Yassmin Abdel-Magied (then an employee of the ABC) who sent out a tweet on Anzac Day (or was it Australia Day?) making reference to the incarcerated refugees on Manus. The anti-pc/free speech brigade in the guise of patriots shouted from the roof tops and pushed for her to be sacked. Which she was and forced to repatriate herself to the UK, where she now works. They themselves enacted the same moral outrage that they campaign against. They now shout for Folau to have the right to blog whatever he wants, yet simultaneously seek exemptions for western churches under employment discrimination laws.
</rant>
