I am 51, bi, and to this day I am not comfortable discussing my sexuality. I don’t think young people understand how different things are now when compared to just fifteen years ago.
Yeah I’m in my 40’s and nonbinary, but I didn’t really understand it until relatively recently. I’ve always known I didn’t fit into my assigned gender, but nobody knew what the fuck “nonbinary” was in the 80’s (let alone here in Finland, which is still really conservative compared to the saner Nordics) so naturally I just got beat up for being different. I even dressed in gender-conforming ways but I didn’t act the part well enough so people naturally needed to correct that with more violence.
The conservative pieces of shit who insist that all these “new genders” and sexual orientations are just a recent invention and in the good old days men were men and women were women are the same ones who were beating us up and even killing us just a few decades ago (not that they’ve stopped doing that…)
I didn’t just suddenly decide to become an enby; I’ve always been one, but I didn’t even have the words for any of this until this stuff became more mainstream. And then they have the gall to act like this is all a choice, like I’d fucking choose to be something that means bigots will literally want to murder me for it. First they insist that I’m not doing my assigned gender right and I’m not a real
{GENDER}, and then when I finally say “you know what, you’re completely right, I’m not”. Can’t fucking win with them, can we?I came out when I was 14 - 26 years ago (albeit as bisexual, because I didn’t know the right words yet) and I felt safe enough to do it because I knew my parents would be supportive, but in the broader world, what I mostly got was, “you’re saying that for attention,” and a lot of gross comments from teenage boys, and that was far less awful than what queer boys got, if they were even able to be out. And then Matthew Shepard was killed the next year a couple of hours from where I lived and it was like oh fuck, maybe I’ll just stick to boys because it’s not as safe as I thought.
I know kids aren’t always safe now, either, and no one in the LGBTQ+ community is safe in many parts of the world, but it really is so different already. We just have to make sure they know how much better it is, and how much better it still could be, and don’t get complacent, because we could be back to hiding the love(s) of our lives very quickly.
So you remember when the worst insult you could call a man was “F@g.” I do. Not idiot, or moron, or dumbass. “F@g.”
That’s still burned into my brain. I don’t say it, but when I’m angry, it’s right there on the tip of my tongue.
I am gay. I have a gay friend who uses that term in a “taking it back” sense.
I love my friend and respect him but it hurts so bad it’s to hear that. It’s honestly triggering to me because it reminds me of middle and high school.
I wish he wouldn’t use that term but maybe it is okay if we really are taking it back.
I have talked to some elder gays who seem to feel the same way about other terms like “lesbian” so maybe it really is a generational aversion to the slur of the time.
I don’t like feeling genuinely upset but I am willing to endure it if it means progression for LGBTQIA+ ppl.
Anyone who has a thought about this pls reply. Would really love to hear non-straight folks opinions on it, but even willing to hear straight folks opinions as long as they are respectful and non-violent. ♥️
Queer person checking in. I too dislike the F-slur because like you say, it takes me back to the worst periods of my life when that was the worst thing you could call a person.
When I was a kid, the common way to express that you didn’t like something was to call it gay. And usually it had nothing to do with gayness either, it’d be like “You signed up for soccer instead of hockey? That’s pretty gay.” “Math class is gay.” “Homework is gay.”
Even before I knew I was queer that bothered me. And the funny thing was if you called someone out for it, they’d weasel out of it by saying they didn’t have anything against gay people, you just call things gay if you don’t like them. They just didn’t see how that was wrong which made it even more frustrating to me. Like, they admit that gay = bad but then say they have nothing against gays? Well, what more can you expect from children?
Nowadays it doesn’t seem like things being gay is so bad. I’ve definitely proudly called things gay, and it feels like the word ‘gay’ is being taken back. So with time maybe that can happen with the F-slur, but for me now it’s still a super triggering thing.
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