The Word ‘Gay’

Alright, gather round everyone. Today I’m going to talk about the word ‘gay’. This is largely gonna be a tale of my personal experience with the term and how I feel about it today.

When I was just a toddler, my Mum and my Dad broke up. This was not a terribly impactful event in my life, and for a long time nothing seemed to change. My Mum was instead in love with her now-wife, Audrey, but the home environment was much as it was through my 3-year-old eyes. And there was nothing particularly odd about my Mum’s new relationship. It hadn’t occurred to me that her being with another woman was an anomaly, and there was no term to associate with their relationship.

Fast forward 4 years to primary school when I have my first encounter with what I might describe as a bully. It being one of the many times he was mean to me, I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but he said to me, at some point during the proceedings, “You’re gay!” I was a naturally emotional child and I recognised that the comment was meant to be hurtful and insulting, so I reacted by crying, even though I had no idea what the word meant. I went home that night and asked my Mum about it.

The following few years of primary school, I was intermittently harangued by this guy and a few others, and called “gay” on a semi regular basis, and it usually made me upset. Looking back, I want to say that I was hurt by the tone with which it was used and not the term itself, but part of me knows that that’s not true. I had already associated ‘gay’ with ‘bad’ and the word had naturally negative connotations even at this stage. The harassment continued to varying degrees throughout most of my school career, but in the middle of all of that, something happened. I hit back.

A guy was pestering me as I was leaving school (in Primary 6, I believe), jeering at me for eating an apple and asking for a bite (???). I dunno why he was acting this was or why I didn’t find it laughable, but I said to him “You’re gay” to rebuke him. His response was far more aggressive than mine ever was, and yet, I felt immensely proud of myself. I’d stood up and put someone who had been trying to upset me down! I felt like the anti-bully! I went home and proudly told my Mum what I had done.

Of course, instead of being happy for me for standing up for myself, she was disappointed. She lamented the fact that I’d sunk to their level, and that I’d used the term ‘gay’ in a hurtful way, and wielded it as an insult.

Out of everything she’s ever done for me, I am most glad that she responded that way to my news that day, because at that point, I finally got it.

I began at that point to question why it was so insulting to be called ‘gay’, and why I should feel insulted at the implication that I was. What would be wrong with that? It wasn’t a bad way to be, in my mind. So why was it used in such a way? Because in the minds of others, to be gay was to be sub-par. Less than in some bizarre way. It stripped you of your respect and dignity, even though at that age none of us really understood WHY it did. It became more clear as I went through highschool and came to understand stereotypes and prejudice and phobic attitudes.

At this point I was far less willing to take the term sitting down. I’d generally respond with “What’s wrong with that?” or “Why is that a bad thing?”, particularly when used by my friends. EVENTUALLY, after much scolding, a couple of schoolmates would suffix calls of “That’s gay!” with “… Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”

Baby steps, I suppose.

My coming out was fairly unspectacular, given my home circumstances. Having gone through most of high school not feeling particularly attracted to anyone, I was mostly of the opinion that I was asexual (which brought with it a whole host of other complications with schoolmates, but that’s for another rant). It sort of occurred to me that “Oh, so, men are pretty attractive”, and then I got on with it. Nothing much changed, and that was all fine and dandy.

Stuff started to feel a bit more personal though. I was always into video games, and as we all know, gamers aren’t exactly the most tolerant or accepting bunch. So I would entangle myself more readily in internet arguments with arseholes in game lobbies who had called people “Fags” or “Gay”. And it stung that little bit more when my friends casually described things as such, although I was generally more quiet about that at this point.

(Brief intermission to say that this post is, in part, penance to myself for all the times I’ve sat idly by while people around me have used ‘gay’ in a derogatory manner. the thought that you might become the prude or the killjoy in a group of friends for calling people out on as regular/natural an occurance as calling something ‘gay’ is spooky, and I wasn’t and still am not generally strong enough to stand up to people when the result might be ostracisation, even if the possibility of that is remote. I think people are generally respectful enough to back off if I tell them they’re making me uncomfortable. Irrationality made me weak though, and I sort of hate myself for that.)

So, the word itself.

Most people who you ask what gay means will respond “homosexual” or something similar. They probably won’t say “shit” or “bad”, because that’s not what people ACTIVELY think when they see the word in a vacuum. But when it’s used aggressively in a social situation, they meaning is pretty clear, and that meaning is strictly negative. It seems to be an underlying PASSIVE attitude that pervades our culture, where people will have gay friends and say they support gay rights, and yet use the word like it’s an insult. Where being gay is still less than to people who would claim otherwise.

It’s really frustrating because I’m extremely proud of my sexuality (one of the few things about myself that I can truly say that I’m proud of (even if I don’t “act very gay”, this has always been the case)), and hearing it be undermined on such a regular basis is really disheartening. Especially when people really don’t seem to see the harm in it. It’s just a word, grow a thick skin, etc. If I had a thicker skin I would probably be just as unwilling to sit by and take it. All that’d change is that I’d be slightly less hurt by it.

Man, I’ve been typing for a long time. Maybe I’ll wrap this up.

I guess what I’m trying to do is encourage people to consider their use of the term more carefully (if indeed they use it at all). I guess I could use the example of “what if we called things straight as an insult?!?” but that back and forth argument is really dumb, and at the end of the day, ‘straight’ makes no sense to be used in such a way. Why should that insult someone? Why would it be bad to be straight?

Why is it, instead, bad to be gay?