The students at my school/employer publish a weekly alternative, snarky newsletter. My job is Programs & Services Coordinator. This is the article I had in the most recent issue. I'm "JBF," and my boss is "Tropiano."
JBF is so gay!
Holy time machine, Batman! The semester is almost over! It's been a crazy, mostly satisfying ride, with just a few speed bumps along the way. At the risk of being all fuddy-duddy, I'd like to elucidate my reaction to one such bump that I hit this past Friday night. No, not the students getting tossed out of Dodgers Stadium due to public inebriation. I have other, more sinister ways of dealing with that.
The bump in question was when a usually thoughtful, congenial student sitting about 2 rows behind me on the cheese bus said that something was "gay."
Continued below the fold...
Now, I realize that saying something is "gay" or even "so gay" has nothing to do with my sexual orientation, at least not in your jazzed-on-life minds. It's just an expression you use to describe something that's tired, stupid, dumb or uncool. Fine. Many of you, dare I say most of you, use this expression all the time and don't think of me, Tropiano, Portia De Rossi, David Geffen, or Martina Navratilova.
However, I'm still hurt when you invoke as a perjorative a word that is used by roughly 10% of the population to describe their sexual orientation. It hurts because bullies still call kids "gay" in a vicious, hurtful way, so damaging that just within the past month, 5th grader Jaheem Herrera in Atlanta and 6th grader Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover in Springfield, Massachusetts, committed suicide because they couldn't take the homophobic taunting of their classmates any more. How many of the bullies in those schools heard their older siblings, cousins, parents or friends call something or someone who was obviously lame, tired, stupid or uncool "gay"? How many school kids who don't fit in, who dress a little differently or talk a little differently are called are called "gay" or even "so gay"? How would you feel if I took a word that you identified with as a source of pride or just as a neutral descriptor (fair-skinned, sports fan, athlete, musician, straight) and used it to make fun of or denigrate a song, tv show, store, culture or person?
I grew up in a culture and time with virtually zero positive gay (homosexual) role models. I grew up fearful and ashamed of being romantically attracted to men. Coming out of the closet was a painful, painful process, and it's something I'll have to do repeatedly throughout my life. When I say that something is "so gay," I'm saying that it is over-the-top stereotypically gay, like Perez Hilton. Or "Dancing with the Stars." All I ask is that you don't co-opt who I am and use it as the putdown-du-jour. Wait a few decades or so, when gays (and lesbians!) will be legally marrying (and divorcing!) everywhere, we've had a non-straight President, kids aren't mercilessly tormented with homophobic epithets, and being gay is as normative as being straight. Then you can call some uncool song or band or whatever "SO GAY!" all you want, and I won't feel it as a speed bump at all.
Update: I originally had included "lame" as an acceptable alternative to "gay," but I've realized that that was also insensitive so I've deleted it from this diary.
Thanks to my friend and colleague Holly for referring me to this video: