Saying "that's so gay"
To a lot of people, this means very little – it’s just a expression many people use to mean that something bothers them, or something is amusing to them but they want to state that they are laughing at it and not with it. When the word ‘gay’ is used like this, a lot of the time it is not meant in a homophobic way – but there are of course a lot of times when it is. We at bathimpact fully understand language and connotational change, and know that the way something is used may not actually correlate with its dictionary definition. In fact, the word ‘literally’ has not been used to add emphasis so much that it can also be used as the exact opposite of its definition, to mean ‘metaphorically’, but also to drive the point home. This much is true, and this is something we understand.
It is, however, false equivalence to compare the use of the word ‘literally’ with a phrase like ‘that’s so gay’, and this is for a multitude of reasons. The first is that these words do not carry the same connotations, and their uses do not have the same weight. ‘Literally’ is a word that just tells the listeners in a conversation how accurate the story being told is. ‘Gay’, however, is an entire identity. To be gay – or any other alternative to heterosexual – is still a very contested thing for a lot of people. People are still persecuted for their sexuality, even put to death in a lot of countries. Some people have their wants and wishes deemed unacceptable because of something they have no control over. For some people, when they are gay, the simple knowledge of their identity - that they know who they are - is one of very few comforts. Even for people who are not in such a delicate position, being gay is still part of who they are, and they have the right to be proud of this irrespective of how vocal they may or may not be about it. To these people, to hear someone use the phrase ‘that’s gay’, regardless of the speaker’s intent can hit close to home for them in a very uncomfortable way.
Many people hearing such phrases are not even gay themselves – they may be bisexual, or they may be expressing gender traits that others do not consider normal, and so they equate the negativity of “that’s so gay” with their own sexual differences. The listener may even be going through a questioning phase that will ultimately help them to define themselves and feel comfortable in their identities. The point is that, for anybody going through any of these things, the phrase “that’s gay” can be very hurtful. It can make them afraid to be honest about who they are, especially if they are already suffering. Used enough, it can make a person so afraid of giving themselves space to work out their own identity that they never do, which can lead to much greater problems later. It seems a bit melodramatic, but here at bathimpact we feel that words are powerful. Words affect people, or we wouldn’t do what we do.
The gay rights organisation Stonewall in particular feel that there is power in this phrase, and are calling for schools to tackle this use of the phrase to insult people after having found that 99 per cent of young lesbian, gay, and bisexual students hear this phrase directed towards them at school. Their eye-catching posters with the words ‘Gay. Let’s get the meaning straight.’ make quite a statement, and bathimpact are on their side. Homophobia is wrong at any stage of a person’s life, but especially for impressionable school pupils, who are trying to grow up and define themselves in this context, the effect can be even more detrimental. For the sake of others who may be affected, remember that your intent is irrelevant if it causes harm – think about how you’d be affected if an arbitrary part of yourself was thrown around as an insult.