[guerrilla]

> I'm open to this argument because it's clear that many people take it this way, but how else would you state it? Everywhere else in English, an adjective limits the scope of the noun it's attached to. "Toxic chemicals" doesn't imply that chemicals are inherently toxic, "red car" doesn't imply that cars are inherently red. "Toxic" is probably needlessly sensational though, I'll grant that.

I have an idea. Maybe it has nothing to do with the syntax of the term in the abstract and all to do with what a large number of people using it actually mean. If the term had no history of abuse, this wouldn't be a problem, exactly as you say. What we see in the actual world though is what people really mean by the term. The people using it are misandrists (evidenced by things like the other terms mentioned in the GP) and so the term has come to be a sort of slur; they just hate men and genuinely believe that masculinity is toxic tout court and they have a very hard time hiding it despite simultaneously spouting off otherwise reasonable theories. In other words, they don't mean what they claim to mean by it and people can detect this, so the term has become tarnished.