originally posted in:Secular Sevens
This isn't about trying to take away your "rights". This isn't us (the LGBT community) trying to control or restrict your behaviour. This is us asking for some respect. We recognize that you can say whatever you want, but we're asking you as fellow human beings that you exercise some restraint, because it makes things harder for us. Things like joking around with our friends, or coming out to the people we love. It makes coming out to ourselves harder, because what should be "I'm bisexual" turns into "I'm a -blam!-." That can be pretty hard to take for a kid not yet out of highschool. It isn't even that I find the word particularly offensive in any overt kind of way, but more that the negative connotation is constantly reinforced until it has been internalized. That causes more challenges than you probably realize.
I don't live openly in real life; I've come out only to about a handful of friends. I have other friends who make anti-gay or homophobic jokes all the time. I haven't told them, and I don't want to tell them. The thought of doing so actually scares me, and that is directly as a result of their behaviour indicating that they have little, if any, respect for LGBT people. I've come to realize that they don't deserve to know that about me if that's how they act, but that's a small comfort indeed when you're down at the beach having beers with your buddies when they start making those jokes. (As an aside, a friend I was out to was present during one such incident and completely changed the topic of discussion when he sensed how uncomfortable I was.)
So I'm not about to call you a bigot just because you say f****t, but when I hear or see you use that word in a derogatory matter, what it tells me is that you don't care.
English
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wow, u moderate biasly. wow such means
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When I was a younger man, the word was used for one reason only.. to guarantee a fight with someone. And I am willing to admit now, with a heavy heart, that I used the term on several occasions for that purpose, myself. Though I do feel that people need to grow thicker skin over such things, I do see a different side of the matter after reading your post. I don't agree completely, but enough that I won't use the word again. (not that I've used it in this decade, anyway. But still.)
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Edited by Ryan: 8/3/2013 3:13:47 AM[quote]I don't live openly in real life; I've come out only to about a handful of friends. I have other friends who make anti-gay or homophobic jokes all the time. I haven't told them, and I don't want to tell them. The thought of doing so actually scares me, and that is directly as a result of their behaviour indicating that they have little, if any, respect for LGBT people.[/quote]This is so true. Many people don't understand how it feels to be in the closet. You are often constantly watching both the actions of yourself (to make sure people don't think you're gay), and the actions of the others (to gauge how people might react if you were to ever come out). If you are in an environment where homosexuality is constantly used as some insult then you are not going to feel safe enough to come out in that sort of environment. The other persons might not even have homophobic feelings but just the use of those words (and when others seem to not care when other people use them) that makes you feel ostracized and want to stay in the closet longer. Seriously though, I cannot fathom why people think they are so entitled to use these words when they do have real and seriously negative consequences on other people. LGBT youth has some of the highest suicide rates, and this does nothing to fix that, in fact, it all contributes to it. If you cannot find the compassion to watch the words that you use to make the lives of people (who already have enough problems in society as is), then you are not a decent human being.
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How did it become an insult for homosexuals anyway?
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Religion