Unit 2

When I was little, around 3rd grade, I was taught about curse words by my teacher scolding me for yelling “chopped up monkey dicks” after a student dared me. I didn’t know what I said was bad, it just felt nice to say, and as a kid i wasn’t worried about the meaning of a word, only the feeling it gave me when I said it. So I continued to said it, loudly, repetitively, and in all the wrong time and places. Fast forward to last year, a friend of mine Katherine and I are leaving Comic-Con, exhausted and reminiscing over the fun experience. On our way out, a crowd was formed, blocking our only way out. Screams and chants of “God hates fags” “Faggots go to hell” and “A faggot is a sinner” was all we heard from the small group blocking the way, surrounded by police officers probably there to stop anything from getting physical. As we were slowly moving through the crowd, the chants got louder, the preachings were closer, and we can see more and more signs bearing that same disgusting word. I’m already exhausted and trying to keep my focus off the preaching and cursing, while Katherine was just about ready to fight the next asshole to call us a bunch of faggots one more fucking time, and I would have been completely behind it in any other case, but we both know it wouldn’t do any good to shut them up. It was definitely a shit stain on our experience, and was a hard reminder of how much hatefulness and disgust a single word can carry.
It’s not clear where the rodent term really came from directly, befor it became the slur used today it was commonly used for a bundle of sticks tied together for fuel. The word was then used as a slur for older women, used as a shorten from “faggot-gatherer” since older women would often make a living from gathering and selling wood. Its first apparent use as a gay slur was apparently in England, private school boys would call each others fags, which in ment doing a favor for an older classmate, in most cases sexual. Regardless of the origins of the actual word, the history of the word is where the real issue stems from. From offensive picket signs around pride rallies, to random casual conversations about a coworker’s friend, to the butt of an untasteful joke, the word has had a conflicting but overall negative connotation to it. From a term to describe a very ‘feminine’ guy, it’s become more of a blanket term for homosexuality and different gender identities in general; similar to the word gay. However, unlike the word gay, it’s more commonly used as a derogatory term rather than a general description. Coming out in any way like gay to a close friend is suppose to be a great experience, but being called a faggot by the same friend can leave a harsher and more painful taste.
Similar words like ‘bitch’ and ‘nigga’ had been shaped through pop culture and communities normalizing the word to be more ‘positive’ from its original meaning. However, it’s hard to say whether faggot has had its edges completely shaved the same way. In schools, kids would call each other fags as a joke for not being manly enough, or just a bit too close to another guy. Go to a pride rally, or some cosplay convention like comic con and you’ll definitely find a similar small group of westboro baptist church members holding up picket signs that read “god hates fags” and “faggots go to hell” while screaming and cursing the words at random passersby like it’ll change a fucking thing. It’s been used to justify events such as stonewall, the arresting and killing of members of the LGBT+ in other countries, the murder of Mark Carson in Greenwich Village, and the attack on an Orlando nightclub. A quick google search can give you thousands of results for small but just as deadly attacks on innocent and unfortunate people. “The fags had it coming” or “wouldn’t have been so bad if they weren’t a bunch of faggots” littering online news article comments and posts about a recent murder, ridiculing or beating of another member of the LGBT+, using the word as a label for subhuman people whose lives are of less important than another based on their orientation.
There’s always the occasional party loving gay guy walking around pride with a sign that say “just a faggot with a tambourine” starting a crowd of people singing “Toxic” by Britney Spears while playing his heart out on that little tambourine. But besides those few and gone cases, there’s not enough “faggot with a tambourine” in the world to outweigh the years of abuse and innocent deaths tied to the word. Maybe when times are different and people aren’t kicked out of their houses or verbally lashed at for liking who they love, would it be easier to shape the word to fit with a more fitting time. In the meantime though, it’s best to use the word in small and considerate means. Pride might not be the same without “faggot with a tambourine” guy, but it might just be for the best that he gets a change.