Words only have the power to hurt if we let them.

I regularly use the term "queer" to mean "something odd or unexpected", as in "there's something queer going on with the BGP peering here". That's not in any way negatively-stereotyping non-traditionally-sexed people.

I once got complained-about for racism because I described a particular locale as 'rather too urban for my tastes'. Urban, y'see, can be used to describe a particular kind of ethnically-derived-music (and by implication, is extended to mean 'people of colour').