"That is so gay" is too homophobic
I'm really, really mad at rec.arts.sf.composition (the thread is called "Help needed with expletives") and I don't know if I should be posting there. But I need to rant, so I thought I'd rant here and get some feedback, and maybe cool down, to decide if I should post, or unsubscribe rasfc a while, or whatever.
The post that finally made me blow my top completely:
Will in New Haven wrote:
> On Apr 30, 6:45 am, zebo...@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:
>> Bill Swears wrote:
>>> I finally looked up Gay in OED. The working definitions of gay as
>>> possibly homosexual come from no earlier than 1922, and appear to have
>>> been internal code to the community until the early 1940s. Greater
>>> public use appears to start in the 1960s.
>>> By the other token, use of "gay" to indicate non-homosexual alternate
>>> lifestyles goes back quite a while, and in that definition, examples of
>>> the common usage predate it as reference to homosexuality, and continue
>>> to pop up in common language today.
>>> Gay doesn't mean now, and never has meant, only one thing. If somebody
>>> wants to characterize my use of gay to mean something homophobic, they
>>> are willfully ignoring most of the other common definitions of the word,
>>> in order to take a largely political position.
>> There are only two definitions of the word that are *common* *today*.
>> (There used to be other common meanings; and there remain other uncommon
>> meanings. But scanning the OED entry you posted, only two strike me as
>> both common and current.) The first means "homosexual", and the second
>> means some kind of "bad" and is clearly derived from the one meaning
>> "homosexual".
>>
>> Because of this, if one uses "gay" to mean "bad", one reminds everyone
>> in earshot that society believes it bad to be gay. A percentage of
>> those people will themselves be gay.
>>
>> Study after study after study have proven that if you tell kids they're
>> bad at spelling they'll do worse in spelling tests; if you divide adults
>> randomly into an "A" team and a "B" team the "A" team will perform
>> better; if you constantly remind people that society disapproves of them
>> they will suffer emotionally, mentally, socially, financially,
>> healthwise, the works. This is not "oversensitivity"; it is simple
>> human nature: we are social animals and we need social approval every
>> bit as much as we need food.
>>
>> In short, if one uses "gay" as a pejorative, one causes people to
>> suffer.
>>
>> This is not a political question. This is a question of: Please don't
>> hurt my friends.
>
>
> I don't use "gay" as a perjorative for a number of reasons, including
> the obvious one, that I don't want to hurt people unintentioanally. I
> try to use situation-specific perjoratives aimed to hurt the
> individual I am trying to hurt or, more often, to express my
> displeasure with a situation that is likely no ones fault.
>
> However, "don't hurt my friends" might also be applied to self
> righteous thought police who labeled kids they don't know "homophobic"
> because of their use of the word. That isn't just an insult; it's a
> diagnosis. And it's unfair, likely to be innacurate and a symptom of
> the person making the accusation.
Nobody called Nicky's kids "homophobic". They called Nicky's kids use of the word "gay" in its negative sense homophobic. I don't think there's any dispute that Nicky's kids did use the word "gay" in its negative sense. It doesn't matter why: whether they are bigots, or clueless, or rude, or thoughtless, or trying to be cool, or reflecting the culture around them, or some other reason I haven't thought of, they used the word "gay" in its negative sense. We're not 'diagnosing kids we don't know'. We are pointing out that the word "gay", when used in its negative sense, is hurtful to gay people. That's what homophobic behaviour is.
In particular, there's every chance that one or more of that circle of friends, even one of Nicky's kids, is gay (in the homosexual sense). Maybe they're just discovering that. Maybe they've known for a long time but have no clue how to talk to anyone about it. Being gay (in the homosexual sense) shouldn't be traumatic - but how can it not be when a word you've grown up using to mean some kind of "bad" or "defective" turns out to describe you? As others have pointed out, where do you think internalised homophobia comes from, anyway?
In another particular, using the word "gay" in its negative sense is also hurtful to straight vanillas like myself. I think I've heard 'gay' used "live" in that sense exactly once and I can tell you the exact context because I was so shocked.
I was in a lift going down in a university building. The next floor down, a group of (I think) honours students got on. One of the students was complaining about a couple of figures she wanted in colour in her thesis, and how she couldn't afford to print sufficient copies of the thesis on a colour printer. One of her friends asked why she didn't just print those pages in colour and the rest on the departmental laserprinter. "No, that would look soooo gay".
The lift had reached the ground floor and they milled out, on their way. I stood there not knowing what to think, other than "so much for the supposed enlightenment and openmindedness of the younger generation". Here was a woman young enough to be my daughter, highly educated, not unlikely to have gay (in the homosexual sense) friends, casually using the word in a clearly disparaging way in public.
I think I had some more rant, about how earlier in the thread, Nicky was cheerfully discussing inventing new expletives for her society that reflected cultural assumptions (like "mutie" after a nuclear war), and how this was a great way to do inclueing. Well, when "gay" is used in its negative sense, that's also inclueing about our society here and now: it's homophobic. Is it really that hard for a newsgroup full of writers to understand?
Well, at least I'm not so angry any more, I'm just tired and sad.
I'll try to post some photos later when I've done some chores and feel a bit better.
The post that finally made me blow my top completely:
Will in New Haven wrote:
> On Apr 30, 6:45 am, zebo...@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:
>> Bill Swears wrote:
>>> I finally looked up Gay in OED. The working definitions of gay as
>>> possibly homosexual come from no earlier than 1922, and appear to have
>>> been internal code to the community until the early 1940s. Greater
>>> public use appears to start in the 1960s.
>>> By the other token, use of "gay" to indicate non-homosexual alternate
>>> lifestyles goes back quite a while, and in that definition, examples of
>>> the common usage predate it as reference to homosexuality, and continue
>>> to pop up in common language today.
>>> Gay doesn't mean now, and never has meant, only one thing. If somebody
>>> wants to characterize my use of gay to mean something homophobic, they
>>> are willfully ignoring most of the other common definitions of the word,
>>> in order to take a largely political position.
>> There are only two definitions of the word that are *common* *today*.
>> (There used to be other common meanings; and there remain other uncommon
>> meanings. But scanning the OED entry you posted, only two strike me as
>> both common and current.) The first means "homosexual", and the second
>> means some kind of "bad" and is clearly derived from the one meaning
>> "homosexual".
>>
>> Because of this, if one uses "gay" to mean "bad", one reminds everyone
>> in earshot that society believes it bad to be gay. A percentage of
>> those people will themselves be gay.
>>
>> Study after study after study have proven that if you tell kids they're
>> bad at spelling they'll do worse in spelling tests; if you divide adults
>> randomly into an "A" team and a "B" team the "A" team will perform
>> better; if you constantly remind people that society disapproves of them
>> they will suffer emotionally, mentally, socially, financially,
>> healthwise, the works. This is not "oversensitivity"; it is simple
>> human nature: we are social animals and we need social approval every
>> bit as much as we need food.
>>
>> In short, if one uses "gay" as a pejorative, one causes people to
>> suffer.
>>
>> This is not a political question. This is a question of: Please don't
>> hurt my friends.
>
>
> I don't use "gay" as a perjorative for a number of reasons, including
> the obvious one, that I don't want to hurt people unintentioanally. I
> try to use situation-specific perjoratives aimed to hurt the
> individual I am trying to hurt or, more often, to express my
> displeasure with a situation that is likely no ones fault.
>
> However, "don't hurt my friends" might also be applied to self
> righteous thought police who labeled kids they don't know "homophobic"
> because of their use of the word. That isn't just an insult; it's a
> diagnosis. And it's unfair, likely to be innacurate and a symptom of
> the person making the accusation.
Nobody called Nicky's kids "homophobic". They called Nicky's kids use of the word "gay" in its negative sense homophobic. I don't think there's any dispute that Nicky's kids did use the word "gay" in its negative sense. It doesn't matter why: whether they are bigots, or clueless, or rude, or thoughtless, or trying to be cool, or reflecting the culture around them, or some other reason I haven't thought of, they used the word "gay" in its negative sense. We're not 'diagnosing kids we don't know'. We are pointing out that the word "gay", when used in its negative sense, is hurtful to gay people. That's what homophobic behaviour is.
In particular, there's every chance that one or more of that circle of friends, even one of Nicky's kids, is gay (in the homosexual sense). Maybe they're just discovering that. Maybe they've known for a long time but have no clue how to talk to anyone about it. Being gay (in the homosexual sense) shouldn't be traumatic - but how can it not be when a word you've grown up using to mean some kind of "bad" or "defective" turns out to describe you? As others have pointed out, where do you think internalised homophobia comes from, anyway?
In another particular, using the word "gay" in its negative sense is also hurtful to straight vanillas like myself. I think I've heard 'gay' used "live" in that sense exactly once and I can tell you the exact context because I was so shocked.
I was in a lift going down in a university building. The next floor down, a group of (I think) honours students got on. One of the students was complaining about a couple of figures she wanted in colour in her thesis, and how she couldn't afford to print sufficient copies of the thesis on a colour printer. One of her friends asked why she didn't just print those pages in colour and the rest on the departmental laserprinter. "No, that would look soooo gay".
The lift had reached the ground floor and they milled out, on their way. I stood there not knowing what to think, other than "so much for the supposed enlightenment and openmindedness of the younger generation". Here was a woman young enough to be my daughter, highly educated, not unlikely to have gay (in the homosexual sense) friends, casually using the word in a clearly disparaging way in public.
I think I had some more rant, about how earlier in the thread, Nicky was cheerfully discussing inventing new expletives for her society that reflected cultural assumptions (like "mutie" after a nuclear war), and how this was a great way to do inclueing. Well, when "gay" is used in its negative sense, that's also inclueing about our society here and now: it's homophobic. Is it really that hard for a newsgroup full of writers to understand?
Well, at least I'm not so angry any more, I'm just tired and sad.
I'll try to post some photos later when I've done some chores and feel a bit better.