Liberal homophobia

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This is just something that has been bothering me for the last while (it happened 2 months ago) but which lately I've rally started thinking about. More on why in a second.

I few months ago I was on a big trip for an international competition, with a few other people I had met before but didn't know really well at the start. They all knew each other to an extent, since they were all from Toronto. We all got along very well and became friends pretty quickly. All of them struck me as being quite liberal in addition to being generally good people.

Now I can't remember exactly when the first incidence was but I think it was when we were playing cards without any chaperones present. Two of them, who happened to be neighbours, would sometimes insult each other as part of game play--either as big talk or if the other played a nasty card. Anyway, what they'd most often call each other was "fag." As in, after being made to lose a hand one of them would say "Your a fag, Kevin." (the names have been changed to protect the guilty--not that they deserve it) Now, it takes quite a lot to offend me, but that sort of thing manages to.

Then later in the week we were playing cards (I think the same game, called Durak--"Fool" or "idiot" in Russian, although I probably spelled it wrong) with some people from Denmark while on a bus. In this game the loser is the durak. Partway through they decided that it would be fun to change the game. It would be played exactly the same way except that now the loser would be called the fag. Fortunately I had already stopped playing because I was kind of tired and wanted to just listen to my iPod for a while, but I could still here what was going on. Just about everyone else thought this was outrageously funny (well, I agree that it was outrageous), including one of my fellow travellers who had previously not taken part in this name calling. One of the other people from Canada didn't seem to find it all that funny, but he wasn't taking part in the game either at that point I don't think (my exact memory is a little hazy). Although he doesn't strike me as the type to laugh at that (incidentally, I suspect he might be a fellow Aspie).

Later we met up with one of our chaperones (not much older than us) and we were having a good time talking about what we'd been doing. Someone told him about how we made the change in the rules to the card game, at which point I burst out about how offensive the whole thing was (not mentioning that I'm gay, because I'm barely out to anyone--although I was tempted to tell them that I am just so that they could get a little shock and maybe think more about what they're saying). The chaperone did support me and agreed that it is offensive, for which I am extremely grateful, but I don't know what the other group members were thinking of my outburst. We were all still friendly for the rest of the trip and I do consider them all to be friends (I'll be seeing them again this fall and thinking about that is what brought all of this up in my mind again) but it upsets me that good people who you wouldn't expect to be homophobes will still say this sort of thing. It's an unthinking prejudice which shows how far even a place like Canada has left to go in LGBT rights and acceptance.

(I apologize for this post being so long--I wanted to tell the story as completely as possible).

Good for you for speaking up. I hope they got the point, and realized their error. Was it an atheletic competition?

I'm not sure it's necessarily homophobia. It could be, certainly (and probably is, at least with some of them), but it might just be unfortunate ignorant vernacular and group-non-thinking. People throw words around without really thinking about their implications. In the case of the word "fag", it's a word that "macho" guys don't like being called, so they throw it around to tease eachother, which is something macho guys generally love to do. They have a lesson yet to learn. Some of them might never, but some of them might only need the realization that the word refers to actual people (which they obviously already know on a basic factual level, but may have yet to truly register emotionally as it might not be something they've faced in real life yet).
The day you come out (if you do), you'll know who can learn the lesson and who is just simply a douchebag.

No this was not an athletic competition, it was a science competition (yeah, I'm just that cool). The idea of me being in an international athletic competition is laughable (not that you'd know that). None of them were what I'd call particularly macho.

When I say it's homophobia I don't mean it is at a conscious level. But obviously they do not consider us as important enough to be worth respect. I mean, the two that started it were Asian, and it would hardly be considered appropriate if, when I saw people being, say, ridiculously polite, I said "That's so Asian." I mean, it sounds like a ridiculous example, but why is it? It essentially boils down to like how people say "that's so gay." It does not show a malicious, purposeful prejudice, but it obviously shows a lack of caring or respect for diversity.

I big part of why I spoke out was because I'd been having a bad day anyway (I did very badly on the competition and had just sat through a ceremony watching everyone else on the team get recognized for making certain percentiles) so this was enough to push me over the edge.

I'm considering that when I see them this fall, if they're doing anything like that again, I might just say "Just so you guys know, I'm a fag. It's really not the term I'd prefer though." See how they respond to that. I probably would do it if it weren't for the fact that I'll be in Toronto with my uncle. He's gay and knows I'm gay, but if I suddenly am back at the hotel when I'm supposed to be seeing friends (because things turned unpleasant) there would be awkward questions. And he'd probably tell my Mom what had happened, and she'd ask why I did something so stupid, because I know that people my age are immature about such things etc. etc.

I still might do it though. I'll see. If any of them actually took the time to look closely at my Facebook profile, they'd know anyway though.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending them, and you did the right thing in speaking out. I would have too. All I'm saying is they might not have been speaking from fear or hatred, but from detachment. People have a tendency to push aside notions they're not directly in contact with. Head in the sand sort of thing. If they were more exposed to homosexuality as a real-life mundane thing, most of them probably wouldn't be talking like that. That doesn't excuse it, but it might contextualize it a bit.
I guess what I'm saying is they're being sheep and they need to be reminded to stop counting each other and wake up.

Macho is an attitude, not a set of muscles. Ever watch The Big Bang Theory? All of the main characters are wimpy geeks, but they tease each other and try to be superior on an intellectual level. That could count as a form of macho.


More likely, they simply weren't thinking at all. Most of the time when people use the word 'ret*d' or 'ret*d', they aren't thinking about its original meaning at all, they just want to use an offensive word.

As far as their being liberal, so what? Having a particular set of political opinions doesn't imply that they are good people, or that they have good taste.

I gave my reason for speaking out not because I thought you were defending them, just because it was an unusual thing for me to do.

Perhaps homophobia isn't quite the right word to use, but I think it's close. What we see in our society is that people are ostensibly supportive of LGBT rights but that there is still a huge heterosexual bias. How many gay or lesbian romantic comedies have you seen? Why is it considered to be a big personal statement to bring up a same-sex life partner or spouse in conversation all the time, but not for a heterosexual to bring up their spouse? Why do people simply assume their kids are straight, asking questions like "Did you see any nice looking <insert opposite gender here>?" (My grandparents, who I am not out to, will do this fairly often and it drives me nuts). I mean, I understand that in all probability people will be straight, but what starts as a reasonable guess becomes the expectation. A public display of affection from a straight couple will get far less attention or outrage than one from a gay couple. These sorts of things are all ingrained in our society. So I guess I kind of see this as an expression of all of that--it shows that people do not really consider that those around them could be gay and that they deserve respect. Perhaps a good term for it would be "unthinking homophobia."

Retardation, the opposite of acceleration, in its original meaning, refers to decreased forward movement, in any context. As such, when talking about people, I use it to refer to non-progressive thinking/behavior, or unwillingness to move forward in some way. If somebody were to take offense at this usage, that's a testament to their limited knowledge of semantics, and not my fault as it is a perfectly accurate usage of the word, and does not in any way inherently imply any kind of handicap.
Unlike the word "ret*d", which I would never call a person.

Not nearly enough. Mostly dramas. And there's usually a sense of "hey look...gay!" rather than "it's just romance". I'd write a mundanely gay romantic comedy myself if I was at all interested in romantic comedies. Hell, I might anyway, just to stretch my writing muscles. Might be tricky though, seeing as how I'm not gay nor particularly experienced with romance. I definitely see a gap though.


As a demisexual, I can definitely relate to this. In fact, when I was in 7th-9th grade, and people were like "what girls are you into?" in every other conversation, I kept saying "none", and people decided to assume that meant I was gay. I didn't feel like having to explain myself or sit through any more boring "hot girls" conversations, so the whole school thought I was gay for about three years, and I just went with it. Which of course led to having to duck out of certain other conversations instead. People are curious, man, I'll tell you that much. There was surprisingly little hostility. Some, but no large amounts. Not much more than I had already suffered through as a wimpy nerd. Then in high school I just identified as basically "I don't give a f**k...literally".


Yep, and it's messed up. Society is ret*d.


I'd call it ignorance. And ignorance, unless willful and crazy stubborn, can be cured with exposure.

I am.

Homophobia refers to actual fear, hatred or disgust toward gay people or homosexuality in general. People throwing words around without meaning them isn't homophobic, it's just ignorant and disrespectful. Which is bad, but it's not necessarily homophobic in the strictest sense. I've known people who say all sorts of things without meaning them, and without really thinking about the implications of what they're saying. It's sad and it's a sh***y thing to do, but let's not get things confused. To say that they're necessarily homophobic is like saying that somebody is necessarily religious just because they say "oh for god's sake" or "go to hell". It's sloppy, but words and feelings are not glued together.
I'm not saying it's not rude or stupid. It definitely is. But homophobia isn't about words, it's about feelings.

And what there showing is a feeling of indifference. It's not like the Christian Right by any means (not that they're that strong in Canada, but I get to hear it spilling over than the US of A). But it shows that at the very least they don't view us as worth thinking about. As you point out, we are hardly the only group that they don't think about, but certainly a major one.

Yes, and this is why I keep mentioning exposure. I think most of these people are in a comfy spot of not having to think about it and thus just going with the social convention of calling people "fag" without thinking of the meaning because they don't emotionally recognize it as a real thing (even though they intellectually know that it is) as it's not something that's part of their lives. It's even possible that the person who started it might be in the closet and overcompensating, it's not that uncommon.

Without being there, and without asking the people themselves, I don't think it's possible to know whether they were feeling fear, hatred, or disgust.

It might not be homophobic in the strictest sense, as you say. But, it is definitely heterosexist. The word 'fag' in this context was antilocution, and there was probably an assumption that there was nobody gay present. These are both heterosexist attitudes.

Anyway, I'm glad that everyone agrees that they were being rude and stupid, and that AstroGeek was in the right.

Exactly my point. Hence my use of "not necessarily".


Absolutely. No disagreement there. And I suspect the only way to change this nonchalant heterosexism is to remind people that gay people do exist all around them and are just regular folks (and not some kind of unseen cartoon phantoms or a generic meaningless insult).