Okay, you can read the title. It's been a problem at my school, and none of the straight kids seem to know why it bothers me.
Fag and its variations mostly seem to be said by straight cis men afraid of seeming gay or by anyone who doesn't think about what it really means and the nasty history behind the term, which even I am not fully educated about so I won't talk about it here. Not even gay men have fully reclaimed 'fag' yet. Straight people sure as heck don't get to use it.
As for dyke, I wouldn't mind being called that by another lesbian or BPQ woman, but anyone else...just no. It's like the n-word. If you're not black, you shouldn't say the n-word - I don't, because I know it was originally a horrifically oppressive slur invented by white people to empower white people. If you're not a queer woman, you shouldn't say dyke for the same reason. It was invented by straight people to empower straight people.
Nobody who says homo really seems to mean anything bad by it. They just use it as a synonym for gay, and the justification is "It's the prefix for homosexual." Yes, it is. And in theory, it shouldn't be shameful to be homosexual or non-monosexual. In actual practice, the word homo is used to shame people, particularly gay men or people perceived to be gay men - even if they're actually straight women who happen to have penises. If you're not part of a marginalized group, you don't get to decide which words used to refer to that group are derogatory.
Queer, for me, is a term of pride. It says that I'm different and that I do not have to be ashamed of that. I proudly refer to myself as queer and to other LGBTQ+ people as queer, and many of them do the same. However, it's taken thirty years to really make significant progress in reclaiming the word queer, and we're still not done yet. So straight, cisgender, dyadic people don't get to use it.
Fag and its variations mostly seem to be said by straight cis men afraid of seeming gay or by anyone who doesn't think about what it really means and the nasty history behind the term, which even I am not fully educated about so I won't talk about it here. Not even gay men have fully reclaimed 'fag' yet. Straight people sure as heck don't get to use it.
As for dyke, I wouldn't mind being called that by another lesbian or BPQ woman, but anyone else...just no. It's like the n-word. If you're not black, you shouldn't say the n-word - I don't, because I know it was originally a horrifically oppressive slur invented by white people to empower white people. If you're not a queer woman, you shouldn't say dyke for the same reason. It was invented by straight people to empower straight people.
Nobody who says homo really seems to mean anything bad by it. They just use it as a synonym for gay, and the justification is "It's the prefix for homosexual." Yes, it is. And in theory, it shouldn't be shameful to be homosexual or non-monosexual. In actual practice, the word homo is used to shame people, particularly gay men or people perceived to be gay men - even if they're actually straight women who happen to have penises. If you're not part of a marginalized group, you don't get to decide which words used to refer to that group are derogatory.
Queer, for me, is a term of pride. It says that I'm different and that I do not have to be ashamed of that. I proudly refer to myself as queer and to other LGBTQ+ people as queer, and many of them do the same. However, it's taken thirty years to really make significant progress in reclaiming the word queer, and we're still not done yet. So straight, cisgender, dyadic people don't get to use it.
1 comment:
I also hate it when people say "That's so gay" and when I call them out, they're just like "B-b-but freedom of speech and I wasn't talking about sexuality" right like that gives you an excuse to be a bigoted jackass. You weren't talking about sexuality...you just meant, dumb or stupid. Riiiight. Totally not homophobic.
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