I grew up with an older brother who would call things gay in a derogatory way back when we were teenagers and i also picked up the habit even though I had never met a gay person and have never had (and still dont have) any hate for them or anyone regardless of sexual preference or gender identity
I still call things gay tho to this day, usually when something kinda annoying happens (e.g. that was kinda gay when the teacher made us do extra homework)
I’m sure there are people who might feel hurt about that so i filter myself when meeting new people and i generally use it less these days but it happens sometimes
Anyone else relate to this?
Yeah totally. I still hear people using it now, people who don’t have anything against the gay community.
Oh, the worst one was when I called something gay in front of my boss and his wife whose name was Gaye.
I avoid using it entirely in a derogatory way now. I even avoid using ‘faggot’ so I don’t insult the harley davidson community.
Story time:
When I was in high school, a guy in one of my classes was the kind of guy who’d use the word “gay” in that manner. I don’t think he was actually explicitly homophobic, more just had an edgy teenage sense of humor.One day, he was talking with a friend of mine that he didn’t know was homosexual, and at one point he “jokingly” said to my homosexual friend, in that exact same joking way: “What are you, gay?”
You could hear a pin drop. Everyone in the room was uncomfortable after that. If he said that to anyone else, you’d just brush it off as an ignorant joke, but because of who he said it to, it became targeted, even if that wasn’t his intention at the time.
I had never met a gay person and have never had (and still dont have)
Roughly 5-10% of people are gay. You have almost certainly talked with many gay people, you may have even made these kinds of jokes in front of those people. This might be a good time to reflect on why those people might have chosen not to share their sexuality with you.
Either way, I’m glad we can have an open conversation about this here - I think most people have gone through some kind of “problematic” phase at one time or another, and openly talking about it with others can help.
Extra context: I’m straight, most of my friends aren’t
It used to be part of the cultural lexicon back in the late 90’s and 00’s, I used to say it all the time and I know gay people who did it as well lol
I think there’s worse offenses but at the same time it’s not hard to just not say it and I feel like it’s a bit insensitive and outdated, if it slips out from time to time it’s not a big deal but I think you’d be better off just training yourself out of the habit.
I think it’s the kind of thing you don’t say in public. If you end up haveing to explain to someone that you’re not homophobic, you’ve already fucked up.
I have a nasty habit of using “retarded” to describe things I find unfathomably stupid, but im very careful not to say it around anyone who might take me seriously.
Also, odd choice to post this question in 196. Besides not really being on theme, 196 is very trans positive, and left leaning. Don’t be surprised if you get accosted a little bit.
I found this quite helpful when I stumbled upon it at some point (a little long but worth the read).
Thank you for posting this! A good friend of mine use to be pretty open minded, but he is constantly exposed to racist, sexist, abliest, and transphobic people in his family and his work. His bigotry just started out as making a “casual” joke that he “meant no offense by”, but now he says the most hateful things about all sorts of people. I had tried and tried again to call him out on it, but i realized he just makes those kind of jokes around people he knows will not get offended (so he has mostly stopped with me, but some times he can’t seem to help himself, which pisses me off). My SO and I are both part of the queer community and it has broken my heart to see my good friend slip into this kind of language and hate. He use to be such a safe person for me to rely on, but now is just a hateful asshole. I just recently had to cut him off because I was not getting though to him and it has been severely affecting my mental health continuing to be his friend. I really needed to read this.
For some mysterious fediverse reason I only just got a notification to this comment now!
I’m glad the article was helpful/comforting to you, and I’m sorry to hear about your good friend, that really sucks. I’ve had sadly a few friends and family go that way myself, and had no choice but to cut them off because it was just intolerable. I really wish there was this switch you could just pull to get them to see how disconnected from reality they’ve become, and who their bullshit is actually serving, but alas, it seems we either wait it out and hope for the best, or give up, because those who don’t want to hear it, never will… 😕
But on a more positive note - the more you learn from people like that what you’re not ok with, the more people who actually share the same values as you you will meet!
Interesting read, I agree that it could encourage homophobia in other people which is not good
Yup, and also you never know who’s listening, like the person here that mentioned their brother, who they assumed was straight but turned out not to be, or those that do know but mask as straight as an act of self defence, in which case they probably wouldn’t open up to someone who uses “gay” as a pejorative.
I find it really helpful to remember that: “The first though that goes through your mind is what you have been conditioned to think. What you think next defines who you are”.
We all occasionally have bigoted thoughts or ideas of one kind or another, even the most vehement social justice advocates, it’s the inevitable result of the world we live in and how we’ve been socialised (and brainwashed) in it, but we are the only ones in control* of what goes past our thoughts and out in to the world where it can not only impact individuals in all sorts of ways, some we may never have considered, but also fosters the kind of environment we have around us, so it’s up to us to make actively better choices. The goal (for me anyway) is to create a world where people don’t feel persecuted for or ashamed to be themselves (as long as being themselves isn’t harming/advocating to harm anyone else, of course)
*yes, autism and other neurodiversity can make stuff like understanding social cues or boundaries more difficult, I know, I’m autistic myself, but when we fuck up it’s still up to us to take responsibility and make it right, not just blame our brain structure/chemistry
Yeah, uhhh, train yourself not to do that.
It makes gay people sad
You’re talking about using the term as a pejorative. I graduated HS in 2001, and it was pretty common to hear “gay” used as a pejorative back then. If I were to take a guess, I imagine you might live in a rather rural area.
It’s probably best to just retrain your brain about using the term as a pejorative… unless something is just gay… like shirts with rainbows that say “Pride”… those are gay.
Do you still call things retarded too? Best to retrain that one out of your vocabulary too, unless you want to be an edge-lord when you talk about music that has slowed down.
retarded
Off topic but the video of Linus Tech Tips casually mentioning how he used to “drop hard Rs when he was younger” was hilarious to me. For context, he was confused and thought the term hard R referred to that instead of to the N word.
It’s one of those dangerously funny jokes. I’ll see things starting with R and want to make a callback to that moment by jokingly incorrectly calling it a hard R. But also, it is a pretty niche joke that few people are aware of, so for about a week after it I had to stop myself from doing stupid jokes like calling rye bread “hard R” in public and getting myself cancelled lol. Because what the hell would you do!? Someone just stops in the bread aisle and stares at you then you say “oh, sorry, there was a video recently where someone got hard R mixed up with the R word instead of the N word and I thought that was funny so I was jokingly calling anything starting with the letter R as a hard R to get a chuckle and remind people of that humourous moment of confusion but you didn’t see that so you thought I was just referring to it as a synonym of the N word.” Yeah, that would go over great!
Having graduated high school in 2010, yes, I used to do this. When I was much younger, like in elementary school, I honestly just thought it meant stupid and didn’t learn what it really meant until middle school.
I don’t want to sound like a brow beating moralist but I would encourage you to stop. Your post reminds me of my mentality of using it in high school. I didn’t view it as rude and I wasn’t directly saying anything negative about actual gay people, so that makes it okay, right? That’s how it felt at the time. I remember saying some annoying or ugly thing was “gay” around a stranger and we sort of had a moment of awkward eye contact. I’m not sure if they were gay and offended or just generally out of by someone saying something like that, but that was the moment I realized I really shouldn’t be using it like that. I really regret using it like that even though it felt like it was culturally acceptable at the time.
TLDR I regret using it like that and don’t want you to end up with regrets too.
Yeah that’s cringe.
for me, i wouldn’t immediately assume that a person using ‘gay’ in that way was a homophobe but it would definitely be a red flag. i’d make a conscious effort to avoid it but i’ve done it occasionally too so i understand the habit.
