<p>Jorgensen Bolinger (2020) argues that contested slurs present a puzzle to semantic accounts of derogatory words, and support socio-pragmatic or uptake-centric accounts. Her argument relies on the assumption that contested slurs are genuinely derogatory and that disagreeing parties are not linguistically incompetent. This paper argues that cross-linguistic and cross-dialectic disagreements involving contested slurs are consistent with semantic theories of slurs. The argument is based on three types of case: first, <i>intra-linguistic cross-dialectic</i> disagreements, <i>cross-linguistic</i> disagreements, and, finally, <i>intra-linguistic</i> non-derogatory words that can be used to derogate and in-group uses of derogatory words. The cases put into question the assumption that contested slurs are derogatory <i>tout court</i> and show that in relevant intra-linguistic cases of contestation, stubborn speakers need not be linguistically incompetent.</p>