Rejected gayness

Pseudonym
Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:34:23 +0000

Ah, the great “gay” debate. Sigh. Seriously, if you still use the word gay to mean stupid, you need to grow up. Suck up your “whaaaaaah, political correctness police!” bs and realize you’d probably be pretty offended if the people around you started saying “Oh man, that’s so [your name here]” when what they really meant was awful and stupid. Attaching a negative connotation to the word gay is offensive, period.

And before you start with a lecture about “the way kids speak” and getting away from the scary interweb, 1) I’m 20, 2) I’m a linguist, 3) I’ve probably seen scarier things on ye olde tubes than you. Language change happens, sure, but it’s ridiculous to act like using gay as a synonym for stupid has no relationship to pervasive societal prejudice against gay people. That’s how language change happens–words don’t pick up meanings out of nowhere, they pick up meanings with a relationship to the ones they already have. Is combating pejorative use of the word gay the most important item on the queer activist agenda? No. But it is a prime example of the kind of ubiquitous casual homophobia that makes a lot of LGBT people uncomfortable.

As for your friend, admissions at a certain point are just completely arbitrary. Sucks, but there’s nothing anyone can do besides find safeties they love and realize that the selectivity of the school you go to reflects nothing on your self worth.