"Hate speech", or hate speech?

The Government has announced its proposed work programme to reform our hate speech laws.
There's a lot of people opining about it online. Tova O'Brien did a Tova interview pushing Minister Faafoi to answer whether millennials calling boomers "cunts" would be hate speech (I may be paraphrasing). Faaf prevaricated and didn't really answer.
Then the usual suspects burst into anger, Seymour, Jordan Williams, Bomber, etc. All angry about their free speech being curtailed. You could almost distil their moaning into "I want to say the N-word and now I'm afraid you won't let me". I'm paraphrasing again.
Free speech "purists" like them say that we should let racists be racist loudly and publicly, and then laugh or ridicule their ideas. Those people who say that are often white and male. Not always, but often. And they have the privilege to laugh and ridicule those ideas because they are usually ideas that don't threaten their existence. However if you're from an often oppressed group - Māori, Muslim, Rainbow, Jewish, hell, even female - those words that we're told to laugh at, and ridicule aren't funny. They're words that make your life uncomfortable and unpleasant to live through. They're words that frighten and degrade you. They are words of hate.
This ties in with the fact we don't often hear free speech purists argue that we should abolish defamation laws, or that we allow Isis propaganda to be broadcast. It's weird how they often like their free speech to be speech that is critical of minorities they're not part of.
These are often the same people who argue that Terf is a slur and shouldn’t be used. Or that Boomer, or Karen, is also a slur and we shouldn’t say them. They’re often very quick to criticise when we say bad things about white people. But minorities? Fuck ‘em.
Yes, we do need to express ideas and debate them and air them. But we also need to protect people and make sure that we can all partake in a life that is worth living. Finding the balance to this is the hard part. Finding the people who should set these rules is the damn near impossible part. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. We need to bring in the people who are often on the receiving end of the horrible words to help us make the decisions, as much as we bring in the ruling classes. To do otherwise is to curtail their right to be heard, and we sure don't want to do that, do we?
Hate speech laws should be beefed up. The exclusion of protected categories such as sexuality, religion, age etc is discrimination in of itself.
I suspect this is going to go the way of the anti-smacking bill. People will gnash their teeth and claim we'll be criminalised for saying "boo", the laws will pass, and not much will change for the overwhelming majority.
But maybe those that become protected will feel a little safer, and maybe like they're a valued part of society too.