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"It's so GAY!" (Grrrrrr!)

Discussion in 'Coming Out Advice' started by Yossarian, Oct 17, 2013.

  1. Yossarian

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    I did something today that I should have done a long time ago. I had stopped off at my gym on the way home from a bike ride to arrange to come back later and play racquetball with an 18 year old kid I have been playing it with. I dragged my bike into the locker room as it is an expensive road bike with a lot of expensive farkles on it which I can't really lock up. We started talking about his own bike, and going on a ride together and he mentioned casually that his bike wasn't as fancy as mine, because he has a milk crate on the back on a rack which he uses to carry his college books around on. I told him that it doesn't matter, that he could always take the crate off to do a ride, and the rack is practical because he mostly uses it to commute to school. It was at this point he said, "Yeah, that's true, but it looks very gay." Not geeky, or crappy, or awkward, but "gay".

    It hit a resonant point in my head for some reason. I asked him, why he thought that a crate on a commuter bike had anything to do with the rider being homosexual, instead of being practical. He then seemed to realize what he had said made no sense, and started backpedaling and saying you are right, that it as just something that people seem to say when something looks "geeky", and that he didn't really mean anything by it. I almost gave him "the lecture" about you never know whose feelings you might be hurting when you say something like that, but he is a really nice kid, who is just repeating what he has heard other kids say so annoyingly casually lately.

    I was a little annoyed and pissed, but I quickly decided that I would explain another day when the opportunity arises for a sitting down discussion, that using phrases like that casually might be very painful for someone that he really likes, but doesn't know is gay. He is straight, as far as I know, but would never intentionally hurt anyone's feelings if he knew they were gay, but this kind of mild slur has become endemic in current slang speech and needs to be explained and discouraged, one person at a time, if not social media in some more organized way. It isn't a big deal individually, more like one of a "thousand razor cuts" that bring gay kids down or keep them in the closet.

    Sorry for bringing this up here as it has nothing to do specifically with coming out, but it is one of those little things that keep closet doors shut.
     
  2. bingostring

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    Every little helps as they say..

    The negative use of the word is very annoying, part of the drip drip drip of subconscious attacks.

    The weird part is that guy might have been gay himself but was just using the phrase because the expression is all around him in his age group.
     
  3. srslywtf

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    Honestly, my generation and younger it is 100% entrenched just through habitual use and exposure. On the one hand they havent consciously linked homosexual with negative.. i think most are more accepting than other generations... on the other hand, its still frustrating.
     
  4. palimpsest

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    It sucks that things people are scarred of trying for fear of how they may appear to others makes them "gay."

    That said, since I'm on my way out and trying to loosen up, I must admit myself trying new things from fashion to just emoting outwardly again, and I ask myself from time to time, what's the worst thing that will happen, some one will accuse me of being gay?

    At least I don't hear a lot of the other crap I did when I was a kid, because there was a much much worse set of slang and assumptions going around up through my teens. Yossarian, as to the lecture, its always there for me too just beneath the surface these days. So I get it, there are a lot of people who say things without thinking and if they only knew the probably wouldn't. I just choose my teachable moments well, when they actually can do some good.
     
  5. mvjp

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    myself and a few others have taken to just going with it and sort of reclaiming the word and its working pretty well these days it only pisses me off when used as an intentional attack
     
  6. LILuke

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    So beyond frustrating when people do this. I keep trying to break my family out of the habit but suffice it to say it has been slow going. :/
     
  7. Choirboy

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    I think that the "charge" on certain words is very different between groups of people. Think of the n-word and how differently it is used by blacks and whites, and how differently its use can be perceived.

    I cringe as well whenever I hear something being referred to as "gay" and think, how is that use affecting some kid who thinks he might be gay and is afraid to say anything? But then I remind myself of the importance of context and delivery and remind myself that sometimes we put that "charge" on a word ourselves, when one isn't even intended. If I say I'm blue, I might mean that I'm depressed, or that I'm so cold I look pale and bluish, or I could have actually spilled blue paint on myself. Sometimes a word, as they say, is just a word.

    I continue to discover new things as I work my way out of the closet. One is that people CAN be cruel and insensitive--we've all experienced that in one way or another--but sometimes they are just clueless, and they can't really be faulted completely for it. Another is that it's quite possible to see cruelties and insensitivities where they really don't exist at all, because we're over-sensitive to them from the bad experiences we've had with bad people. One of the things I'm working on in my own mind is trying to avoid making too many assumptions about people's opinions. To a certain extent, that's what landed me in the closet in the first place.
     
  8. Jonamo

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    I may be in the minority but it hasn't ever bothered me. I try not to say it when out in public because it could hurt those who are questioning or are still in the closet, but my friends/brothers and I all throw it around and call each other 'fags' when we are by ourselves. They know I'm gay and at least to my group of friends and fraternity brothers we don't use it in a derogatory way towards homosexuals.

    When I came out to them, I let them know that saying 'gay' and 'fag' about me or people's actions doesn't bother me so they keep going with it; if it did bother me I know that they would have stopped once I told them.

    Some people think that it's pushing back the equality agenda by doing so, but I know that my friends and brothers still respect me for who I am personally, and for the most part they are completely acceptable of homosexuals.
     
  9. MrAllMonday

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    Ah don't worry about it. He probably did not meant anything by it.