Is there a word for perceiving sexism/racism that isn't present?

In a recent conversation about Parent and Child parking spaces* one participant became offended at the sexism of comments like "they should just walk", or "why do they need 8 seat vehicles to go shopping in". They took that as being sexist to their position as a mother. The person stating it meant it in the manner of any parent, not just a mother. Thus, it was not sexist.

Is there a word or phrase for this kind of perceived but not present sexism/racism?

(* if you're not familiar this is an extra large parking bay near the shops so as allow Parents with Children more room to load/unload said children.)

_{NB: You may be tempted to disagree with the assumption/statement that this is not sexist. You could very well be correct but this is not the place to argue such so please don't. I was neither participant so please don't make assumptions about my own attitude.}

For me, just based on my interpretation, I would call those people hypercorrect. That just has to do with my perception that most people who are going to respond like that do so out of a desire to be politically correct and offend no one, which may be overly general and wrong, but it's my perception and thus contributes to my answer. It seems a concept that would be better expressed as a phrase, as an aggregation of several smaller concepts.

As to the comment provided on a previous answer ( Is there a word for perceiving sexism/racism that isn't present? ) that certain things are not satisfactory as answers, and should perhaps be in comments, I would like to posit the idea that certain answers, while not directly answering the question asked, still contribute something to the spirit and nature of understanding of the question and the practices of culture and linguistic interaction. Not only that, but there are also people like myself who don't have a high enough reputation to comment, and by the time we do, the moment is gone and we have lost what we wished to contribute.

I will gladly take down this answer if anyone finds any fault with it, but I would really be remiss if I did not post this.

Statements like "they should just walk" or "why do they need 8 seat vehicles to go shopping in" are irrelevant to to the discussion of "Parent/Child parking spaces" and were essentially out of order.

The person objecting may have misread these obnoxious folks -- they may have been simply "anti-yuppie" or some such rather than sexist -- but the person was perfectly well justified in raising an objection of some sort.

As to your question, I can't think of a good word to describe being offended by something offensive but ostensibly for the wrong reason.

But thinking about it some more, this is something along the lines of a logical fallacy, though I can't figure out which one. Ad hominem, perhaps, with the speaker saying "you're a woman and so of course you'd complain about sexist bias. Therefore we can ignore the fact that we have indeed exhibited a bias which could reasonably be interpreted as sexist, since of course you'd complain about such a thing."

I am tempted to call it a simple genetic fallacy, a fallacious assumption that the argument is wrong because of the person making it. But that's not all that's going on here. What's going on is that the person arguing for better parking for mothers is reading a dismissive argument, "they should just walk," and perceiving that it must have come from someone that is perhaps opposed to all procreation, or--less sarcastically--someone who just hasn't fully unpacked all the biases that make them dismissive.

C.S. Lewis coined the term bulverism for this implicit assumption that the flaw in the argument, "they should just walk" is that the argument comes from a biased person AND must be wrong because it comes from a biased person. Both assumptions are fallacious on those grounds.

Lewis wrote:

"You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly."

In this case, you'd assume "they should just walk" is a ridiculous, biased thing to say, and then get busy explaining why it's stupid to marginalize the need of mothers to walk shorter distances. The fallacy is skipping right over explaining the need to arguing that the need is obvious and should not be marginalized, and that anyone who marginalizes the need is biased.

Some anonymous genius at Wikipedia contiunues:

Assuming one's opponent is wrong is a formal fallacy of circular reasoning. Undermining one's opponent rather than arguing that he is wrong is a fallacy of relevance or genetic fallacy. Bulverism combines both of these. One not only assumes one's opponents are mistaken but also accuses them [of] believing the mistakes because of their motives or some accidental features of who they are.

In the situation the OP describes, there's bulverism at play, because "they should just walk" is assumed to be risible, and the only criticism of the argument is that it's inherently biased. A better response is to argue the argument comes from someone unaware of the societal benefits engendered by giving parents better parking spaces, whatever those are. You should not argue that it must come from someone who hates breeders.

I happen to be a father of two, and I'd love the occasional better parking spot. But "just" walking is exactly what we do with our children, and I'd find it difficult to explain why any particular parking lot is an exception to all the others. Perhaps full of unvaccinated people and roving bands of dingoes? I don't know.

The more succinct the expression, the more context needed.

Acute sensitivity to racial/sexist slights. Racial/gender hyperacuity. Reactivity. Heightened bias sensitivity.

Being thin-skinned, hyper-aware, having a chip on your shoulder, making a mountain out of a molehill, lacking perspective, being unforgiving, being a racial/feminist crusader, bringing race/gender equality into everything, expecting bias to be around every corner, being a bias tinderbox.

It happens when your sensibilities are inflamed, you are too isolated, and you have plenty of other things to be resentful about.

In a sense, your resentment about whatever other things are going on is displaced. So we could say displaced resentment, or racially displaced resentment.

It happens when you are unable to distinguish between what is harmful with what is simply hurtful.

The hypersensitivity ends up being self-destructive. But it can be hard to pull yourself out of it.