this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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When I was growing up “f!!!ot” wasn’t even seen as a cuss word, it was just a burn you called your friends all the time. We didn’t really think about it until I was 16 and one of our friends came out as gay. My whole friend group kind of had it click at the same time that 1. We didn’t care that he was gay and 2. It was probably pretty fucking rude to call everything we didn’t like “g!y” and call eachother “f!g” as an insult. I think that realization happened for a lot of people who had gay friends in my generation, and it’s part of what helped lead to the level of acceptance and support the LGBT community has now.
I was the gay friend who changed my friend group's language, and I didn't even do it intentionally. After I came out, I had a few of my friends ask if them saying "fag" or "gay" or similar was bothering me as long as they weren't intending it to be a slur against gay people. I just told them the honest truth:
"It doesn't bother me, and I don't think any less of you for using it; but I do hear it every time it's used. It jumps out just as clear as someone saying your name in a crowded room. Every. Time."
And that's really all it took. Just the awareness that those kinds of words aren't entirely meaningless. That maybe if you're only using them to describe something negative in a general sense, then there are other words you can use that work just as well, but aren't connected to an entire group of marginalized people.
It was kind of a funny year or so after that when they were trying to break the habit. One of them would accidentally say something and all that would happen is we would lock eyes for a second and I'd just give a small smile and a nod as if to say "You're fine, I don't think you're a bigot. But yea, I heard that."
Yeah for us we were all surprisingly progressive about it for a small town Alberta school. Like everyone in the school bar a few goofy assholes were totally fine with it and the entire school just started policing their language. It wasn’t even a big deal. But I’m sure it wad important to him and the few other kids who didn’t come out until after school.
I’m sure it didn’t go that well everywhere for everyone.