What Do We Say When We Hear Faggot Analysis

Martha Irvine, a graduate of the University of Michigan published an article titled Queer Evolution which talked about how the word “Queer” itself has evolved into the mainstream. Originally the word’s definition was to describe something as odd or weird. Society utilized the word “Queer” as an insult to the LGBTQ community. As more sexual orientations are being discovered, “Queer” became a more accepted word in the gay community in order to make things simpler. Irvine’s essay showed that whatever word we use, can affect a person depending on the intention, and the tone of how it’s being said. Irvine’s essay is very similar to Deborah Tannen’s essay You’re Wearing That which talks about the relationship between mother and daughter and how words have established expectations for women based on their appearance and behavior. Another essay that well connects with Tannen and Irvine’s articles is a section from a book written by Michael Kimmel titled Bros Before Hos’’: The Guy Code. Kimmel talks about “The Guy Code”, rules that a man should always follow in order to be considered a real man. Words are the reason why these standards have been established for all genders and sexualities. The relationships between parents and children would be better if words were replaced, which would abolish the expectations that society has for men and women.

As a member of the graduating class of 2016 at Burncoat High School, I care deeply about its students and their wellbeing. I am currently enrolled at Smith College, and in my sociology class we read a book titled, “Dude You’re a Fag,” by C. J. Pascoe. This book has brought to my attention many problems regarding gender and sexuality in high schools. That being said, I am concerned about institutionalized heterosexuality1 and homophobia2 and their effects on the student population at Burncoat. During my four years at Burncoat High, I witnessed many instances of blatant homophobia with absolutely no intervention from anyone in a position of authority. This must be changed. The curriculum must be updated and new rules must be enforced.

Pascoe begins by pointing out ways in which the school as an institution plays a crucial role in the formation of masculinities. She often noticed teachers routinely ignored homophobic and sexist comments made by students. Students were never really punished for using words like “fag,” “gay,” or “dyke”. What are less obvious and more upsetting than the criticisms of the sex-ed program are the varied examples of the ways that “Heterosexual discourses were embedded in the physical environment of the classroom, teachers’ instructional practices, and students’ classroom behavior” (p. 39). From the pictures of boy/girl pairings on the walls, to the homophobic jokes between male students and male teachers, the schools’ complacency with heterosexism becomes undeniable. In one instance a boy and girl left the Winter Ball early, two vice principals joked “You two going to a hotel or what”? I feel that if two male students walked off that the administrators would have reacted in a different manner.

A troubling issue for schools now is how to deal with the issue of homosexuality. The struggle for gay rights often causes heated opposition, particularly on moral grounds from members of religious groups. (Essex, 2005, p. 43) Schools have an obligation to maintain a peaceful environment free of significant disruption, while supporting students' rights of free speech. Schools should ". . . create an environment that is characterized by respect for individual views and divergent forms of expression within reasonable limits. The challenge seems to involve achieving a reasonable balance between an orderly educational environment and respect for the free speech rights of students. Precisely, where do they draw the line?" (Essex, 2005, p. 44)

As a lesbian, there are a few slurs that can trigger a spark of dread in me on instinct. The word faggot is one of the first to come to mind. On occasion a group of teasing friends will use such words as a playful insult among one another--and it feels like I am the only person hearing them yell ‘fire’ in a building full of uncaring people. These words burn into my subconscious like a bundle of sticks being thrown into smoldering embers; the hairs on the back of my neck rise, my hands clench into tight fists, and my eyes dart about fearfully for the perpetrator. It is an ugly word--a crude, cruel word in both sound and meaning. It weighs heavily on the tongue like a condemnation, as it remains to be for gay people today. Therefore, due to the word’s implied hatefulness, our culture needs to shift from using faggot as a playful insult, to leaving it behind as we attempt to become a more diverse and accepting world.

Certain name-callings have had another effect on individuals, rather then making most of them insecure and overachievers. Names like "Fag", "gay", and "homo" are very harsh words to be instilled in someone's mind. "To constantly be told how gay you are, you begin to think you might just be a homosexual". This is a direct quote from someone speaking about his harassment in school. This individual feels after being so brutilly harrassed in high school that perhaps their might be some truth. This interviewee allowed others opinions to go so far that he even began to question his own sexuality. Waking up day after day, and hearing the same remarks about your sexuality over and over again your opinions about yourself begin to change.

In the article “Core Values and the Identity-Supportive Classroom: Setting LGBTQ Issues within Wider Frameworks for Preservice Educators” by Michael Sadowski, Sadowski discusses the issues and research on LGBTQ+ in education and a school environment. He focuses on both the students’ and teachers’ behavior towards LGBTQ+ situations. For students, more often than not, there are many forms of verbal harassment that take place such as slurs and derogatory language. For teachers, it is the lack of intervention when this harassment takes place, “38.6 % of the students…indicated that their teachers never intervened when they hear students use homophobic language…44% indicated that teachers intervened only ‘sometimes’.”

GSA groups have been around since the 1980’s and according to the Gay-Straight Alliance Network there are currently over 4,000 school based groups throughout the United States (Currie, Mayberry, and Chenneville, 2012; Tommey, Ryan, Diaz, and Russell, 2011). GSA groups came out of the Gay Rights Movement during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Adolescents identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) or align within the context of this spectrum have been victims of bullying, discrimination, prejudice, persecution, and hate within the school system. For one decade, between 1999 and 2009, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in the United States asking students to describe their high school milieu. According to the findings, 61% of LGBT students feel unsafe, 72% report hearing degrading comments, 85% are verbally harassed, and 40% are physically harassed (Fetner, Elafros, Bortolin, and Drechsler, 2012). The statistics for minority high school students including Latinos and African Americans had slightly elevated rates in both verbal and physical harassment. It was not until the realization that LGBT adolescents, like other adolescents, spend the majority of their time within the confines of the American public education system and suffer, did acknowledgement of creating a safe space for LGBT students develop (Toomey et. al, 2011).

A typical SJW would immediately retaliate and denounce anyone who uses these words. As a homosexual myself, I would not take offense to slurs of any kind, even the ones directed at my orientation. Several gay people that I associate with also believe that such derogatory terms are petty and insignificant (a few of them are in fact encouraged by those slurs). Some people attribute the offensiveness to lie within the words themselves, even though words can drift in and out of inappropriateness. Most of us recognize, for instance, that "gay" literally means "happy" and related synonyms. Only within the last century did it happen to acquire the current context; consequently, many teenagers began to use it derogatorily. "That's so gay," is not a direct offense to gay people, but rather implies entirely different semantics. Isn't it rude to call someone stupid? Therefore, why would it be acceptable to use "that's so stupid"? They represent the same meaning! So how can one be more offensive than the other can, even though they're both relatively offensive in their own right? Involving the same group of SJWs in that LGBT+ chat, I received retribution for using the word "retarded", to which I defended myself with the literal definition and traditional use of "to retard". Suddenly, I realized that the logic behind a word’s obscenity originates from allowing ourselves to be offended by it in the first place. If as a society we didn't ascribe a word potential to offend or insult, then that word can’t be an issue. Attempts to phase out unacceptable terminology merely results in a different word to replace its unacceptability as people will consistently find other ways to object to whatever issue draws their attention. Self-victimization, attention-seeking, and name-calling recurrently plague human history, yet we are hopelessly ignorant to our past transgressions as a human

Many students may feel hesitant to speak out against anti-gay slurs out of fear of being persecuted themselves. In the U.K. a series of surveys commissioned by Stonewall reported that as many as 93 percent of young gay, lesbian and bisexual people who are ‘‘out’’ at school suffer verbal abuse (Thurlow, 2001). It is evident that it is not a coincidence the LGBTQ youth face the most harassment of any minority at school.

On September 3, 2010, an episode of a show called Community was aired. During the episode one character, Jeff Winger, said, “The most important tool is respect,” and Senor Chang responded “Ha, gay!” After the episode aired, this clip blew up all over social media. The producers of the show probably didn’t consider the scene to be harmful, but it gave people the justification to use gay in a teasing manner. The word gay in this context means dumb or stupid, which implies that homosexually is “stupid,” and there lies the wrongness of the new meaning.

[The Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) organization at my high school, which meets twice per month, generated a list of concerns that they shared with school administration. The focus was specifically about gender identity, the lack of support from school staff, and the daily scrutiny they face as a result of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Through collaboration with my colleagues it was evident that there had been an increase in teacher and student referrals surrounding gender identity. The feedback from GSA clearly identified that as a school we are not meeting the needs of our LGBT students and those struggling with sexual orientation. Members of the GSA clearly feel that teachers ignore negative comments like “gay” and “faggot” when they hear them in class, that teachers may not clearly understand gender neutral language, and that our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) students do not feel safe and protected in school. Students needed support advocating for their right to use a restroom, correct pronoun, etc., requiring district, community, parent, and colleague

In the last few decades more and more young individuals identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, which has sparked a level of interest in educators, as well as researchers to determine the amount of students who feel uncomfortable in their school settings, and why. This research paper will inform educators what the need to understand and protect the students in their classroom in order to create a more diverse, healthy and cooperative learning environment for all students. When students are in the educational setting they should not be afraid to attend school or be uncomfortable; educators should make their classrooms and their school a safe havens for all students, no matter their sexual preference. The purpose of this paper is to inform the readers about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community history, how it suffers harassment, prejudices, school difficulties, policies that are in place to assist students, as well as some possible solutions to assist in the education setting.

This last Act offers ‘legal protection against incitement to hatred on grounds of sexual orientation.’ It also relates to serious acts of hatred towards others of certain sexual preferences, which include encouraging or publicising any hateful homophobia through websites, song lyrics or just in general. Teachers have to consider this, as at that age children are very vulnerable and can allow the hateful comments and acts towards them to affect them heavily. Therefore, teachers must aim to avoid this situation from occurring, and promote and encourage their students to be more diverse and accepting with other people and their personal life choices.

Our culture emphasizes a mentality that encourages dominance and aggression. Extreme bullying, often using sexual slurs such as "gay, fag, slut and whore," is becoming a common experience for students of all ages, and in particular, for children aged 11-13.