Vile terms used to describe gay people. Why do people insist it's ok?

[peoplepleaser1]

My Facebook feed was sadly peppered with awful terms to describe gay people yesterday following Philip Scofield's announcement.

It wasn't the specific comments about PS that shocked me, but more the causal use of vile terms and references to AIDS.

It saddens me and angers me to read this stuff. I put what I felt was a measured response on a few posts because I felt I had to say something, and then quietly unfriended a few people.

Since then some people's partners, siblings and one persons mother have posted about pathetic snowflakes who take offence at anything i.e. me.

Several have said they have gay friends who use these terms themselves, so in their eyes that makes it ok.

One said that she doesn't believe gay people find these terms offensive. I only know three gay people well and I know that they find it really hurtful.

I've not responded to any of these comments except for my initial response and I don't intend for two reasons:

1. I don't think I can write anything that will make any difference as these people are convinced they are right and don't want to listen to a different POV .

1. I don't actually know what I can say to make a difference.

Am I overreacting- do other people agree with me?

@OhLook it was on my Facebook page and I've taken on board that I need to be more careful about who I have as a friend on there. Having said that the worst comments were from friends of friends.

I don't use Facebook much, and I like it less today than I did yesterday!

WRT the 'n' word this tends to come up as part of a conversation with older relatives. Someone will use an outdated term for a black person (not the 'n' word, usually the 'c' word), I'll correct them and then we get the inevitable debate about me being oversensitive and serious and how the n word is used within the black community....

I have a gay daughter and a bi-sexual daughter. Went to Pride to support them marching. I am so damned glad that their life experience is starting to be reflected and normalised by inclusion in TV programmes, books, films, reality tv shows.

Maybe it'll get some of those dinosaurs who still have trouble accepting that not everyone is exactly the same as everyone else, and that this is okay, normal, and absolutely fine and is not the end of the world as they know it, a little more able to get with the programming of the 21st century.

Maybe then I'll not have a daughter coming home from school in tears because someone she considered a good friend told her she was being 'too gay'. Maybe I'll not have her coming home in flames because she was sick to damned death with the casual homophobia she witnessed and experienced on a daily basis.

Words have power. Words can hurt. If you know that some words have high potential to give offence, and cause hurt, why would you casually use those words, and then seek to deny the likelihood or reasonableness of someone being offended?

I'd rather be 'woke', a 'snowflake' or 'pc gone mad' than an ignorant, arrogant, retrograde arsehole any day of the week.

I'm very sorry that I typed the word. That was wrong.

The friends that I choose are not like this, except for the ones that shocked me yesterday in Facebook who aren't real friends. Sadly some of my family don't get it, they don't use very offensive words but use outdated and old fashioned words and don't seem to take any notice when I explain that they need to stop.

I had a similar conversation about gay people using words amongst themselves to reclaim them (like all people for all time) but as far as I’m concerned I don’t black people how they experience racism, I don’t tell Jewish people what’s anti Semitic and I would not accept a man telling me how I experience sexism. And that’s what it boils down too, if there words which are deemed offensive there will be other words you can use.
Totally separately I can’t believe how many people care about PS’s bedfellows.

If you know that many people using homophobic slurs and the n and c words to refer to black people, you seriously need to reassess who you are spending time with.

My friends and I are sweary and gobby. Not one of us would use those words and if someone did we would think they were a cunt. Which is a word we do like, for our sins.

Purge your Facebook and have a think about the company you keep and why so many of them use homophobic and racist language.

I've seen one of this on my Facebook I'm not sure they even care he has come out after all these years

And I think faggot was done to death over christmas amazes me how people can say him calling her a slut is fine 🙄

I’ve had two things on my timeline about PS. Both were links to news items, no comments.

Take a long hard look at your friends list. You wouldn’t go seeking out knobheads in RL, don’t give these people an audience on social media.

I agree wholeheartedly with you @mbosnz , you've put it much better than I did.

I'm getting a bashing for the company I keep. Most of this came from friends of friends on Facebook aka not RL friends. I've unfriended those concerned. I'm not to blame for their ignorance, but I do wish I could help then see if for what it is.

That’s ok Peoplepleaser1, I Find the N word offensive as l grew up in the 60s, as a young black child and often had that offensive name hurdled at me many a time. I know the some black rappers use that word, to try and ‘claim’ the word as there own, so not to make it offensive anymore. I can’t and won’t make that stance. It will always be offensive to me, until the day l die. Sorry if l am derailing this thread.

I also spent the 70s being called "the N word" - but I find it terribly coy to avoid it in this way (in the 80s,it was "the P word", about which phrasing I feel likewise - that the twee coyness makes me feel literally nauseous. It's a physical and visceral reaction ) - but I apologise for offending you @Monny1

I think the point stands, though: why will people feel self-righteous for "calling out" racial abuse, but remain silent in the face of homophobic or other forms of abuse?

This may, though, be one of the perils of Facebook - that you get exposed to stuff through friends of friends of friends that you'd never tolerate in your own social circles, but because they are peripheral to you, it's somehow harder to take a stand for some reason?

@Monny1 you're not derailing at all. I'm glad you posted and called the term for what if is- deeply offensive.

I'm sorry that you were ever called it.

People baffle me.

Thank you Lailaha, apologise accepted.

I’ll make this clear, I do not live my life around these people willingly and I absolutely give any homophobe a mouthful but I can’t move out of the community in which I live as I’m tied to a mortgage here Unfortunately these types don’t seem bothered by a telling off from a ‘dyke’.

I'd unfriend anyone who said stuff like that.

There seems to be a multiplying but almost simultaneously dying out breed of 25year+ male who finds his audience for his cheap humour on social media where a few years ago hed have done it at work.

Endless videos and status bordering on the offensive, constant taking the piss out of their partner (who for some reason seems to think hes brilliant), obsession with McDonald, 'snowflakes' and teenage girls- usually vapes and is a terrible father.

I bet at least 75% of those who said these things nearly match that decription