What is your experience with homophobic slurs, and do you think it’s prevalent among certain groups?

42 comments

1. This question is fucking gay bro

2. Once you start interacting with people whose IQ is higher than their shoe size, these slurs and the words behind them vanish.

3. everything is a slur today.

   Even groups that advocate inclusion, or at least pretend to do so, happily slap labels on everyone who isnt them.

   In todays world, more often than not, people are offended because they chose to do so for attention.

   Just dont be offended by everything and you will be fine, thats how I see it.

4. The people i heard didn’t slur them at all. Annunciated them very well.

5. Back in high school many guys did it to be edgy, i had the same experience with antisemitism.
   I know it stuck with some people, i have acquaintances who still use gay as an insult even though im pretty sure they are not homophobic.

   I’ve worked in several pharmacies and there was always a weird negativity towards gay customers among my collegues. They don’t use slurs, but they judge. No idea why some young to middle aged and not particularly religious women would have a problem with that.

6. I still hear them in the workplace and social cliques. I know i still go “gaaaay” sarcastically when seeing poorly done overly emotional scenes in TV and movies.

7. I used to use them a lot more back in my college days. Never as anything malicious, but only as banter, such as calling a friend gay for no reason at all.

   But nowadays I don’t really use them cuz I’ve grown up obviously.

8. My personal experience has basically been that making fun of gay people was something that was extremely common 15-20 years ago, became far less common since, is now being “reclaimed” by Gen Xers and older millennials that listen to Joe Rogan as a sort of midlife crisis avoidance of thinking about their own mortality and how much has changed just because they are getting old, and is just generally seen as a terrible way to treat people nowadays.

9. I think we shouldn’t call homosexual people “gay” because this word coming from greece and it means “the one brings shame”. If i remeber right the youtube video i watched.

10. I don’t know what kind of answer you really expect here.

    I haven’t heard widespread use of homophobic slurs since the early 2000’s. I’ve heard more gay people use the term “fag” to describe other LGBT people than I’ve heard straight people use it. I don’t really know how offensive that word is supposed to be if you’re just dropping it in casual conversation as a gay person.

    Do I think people really need to lay off the queer community? Absolutely I do.

    Do I think the queer community needs to stop being so fucking sensitive to everything? Also yes.

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12. Yes completely straight men disagree and resent gays if gays are being flamboyant they will most likely face adversity. If you are polite modest and respectful a cultured man will be respectful in return.

13. usually its just dudes talking trash to each other. Literally no intend to be serious. Like if you’re working on a car and pick up a big wrench/tool/hammer/etc then a bro goes “dude thats gay…”

    I knew one gay guy in high school.. He was a tall and athletic build. One time in the locker room, a younger kid made gay slurs to him and he tossed him into the lockers. I was like “I warned ya!”.. I used to tease him all the time “bro, stop staring at my package” he’d laugh and call me an ass.

14. My own personal observations are that it’s tapered off significantly over the last 20 years. Most people are – live and let live and are overall, generally accepting. The only exceptions I’ve seen are when some are very overt and in-your-face about their “gayness.” Some people are just looking for a reaction, and get it.

15. In middle school and high school it was quite common, but most of the time we didn’t even know what it meant. Lingered just a bit in college but I made a conscious effort not to use it.

    Some people definitely still use it, not to refer to actual homosexuality, but just as a general insult. Some people use it and are also quite homophobic. It probably shouldn’t be used at all.

16. In general I’ve heard a lot of homophobic/transphobic nonsense in my life, but I leave that shitty behaviour to those people. Shitty people will always have shitty intentions.

    Nothing more to say on the matter, really.

17. I don’t hear homophobia these days unless it’s someone pushing their religion or politics.

    The closest I’ve come lately is some guy at a party was some guy who kept trying to make “Bud Light” jokes about people, and everyone just kind of got quiet and looked at him like he was an idiot.

18. Now, at the gyms, gay guys stand outside the showers and say those things as an advertisement

19. I’ve got no problem with gay men unless they keep acting hella gay. Then that’s gay as hell.

    I have no issues with gay men (or any other type of person) who acts like normal people. I just hate the absolute over the top queer caricature that some will adopt and it just annoys me. Two of my bosses at different jobs were both himosexual and I never felt anything towards them I wouldn’t feel towards a straight man, but when I meet someone who acts in the opposite manner to normal, I just feel a strong sense of wanting to be fat away from them.

20. Back in high school (pre 2008 for me) saying “that’s gay” was as common as “oh my god”, calling ithet guys a fag was also very common.

    But at some point you should really grow past a high school mentality and figure out better ways to verbalize something, and you know, not be a cunt towards gay people

21. 2 of my 3 experiences with homophobic slurs came from random dudes driving by in their cars as my boyfriend and I were walking around. One was some dude in a red truck, the other was a group of frat boys.

    The non-drive-by slur happened back in high school when a friend used the South Park distinction to separate me from a more feminine gay guy whom he called the f slur (sorry, I’m not here for that).

22. I work in a blue collared job, I hear it daily.

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24. Water off a duck’s back. You can call me whatever you want, doesn’t make it true, doesn’t mean I have to let it affect me. And as far as use goes, I generally don’t use them, I like to tailor my insults to the person, not use some cheap slurs.

25. Generally gay is just used as a substitute word for “bad” in the vulgar usage.

26. Older ther worse 55 above I’d say is the worst.

27. This might get me downvoted to hell, but I never heard more homophobia and gay bashing comments in my life, than I did as a teacher at a primarily black school. I’m not gay, though I was the only Jew working in the building and one of like 10 white teachers (out of about 100 staff members).

    I was in middle school in the early 2000s, where everything was “gay” and everyone was a “fag”, and it did take some time and effort to excuse that kind of language from my common usage after I grew up and learned that it was wrong to speak that way. I thought most people went through something similar, because I don’t really hear shit like that now in 2023.

    But having taught at this school where nearly everyone was black… the fucking nastiness coming from these kids and even some staff members was honestly sickening. That was just one of many reasons that I quit teaching, because I couldn’t bear going back to that shitbox of a school.

    So, yeah, it’s absolutely more prevalent among certain groups of people.

28. I live on the south-western part of Sydney which is probably one of the more “conservative” ends and I remember a few years ago having three middle-aged men harassing me on the train for being a “faggot” since admittedly I *was* dressed in a lot of leather. It went on for like 20 minutes until I finally got to my station (leaving the city back towards home) and could get away. A group of younger (late teens/early 20’s) passengers at least had sympathy and approached me afterwards telling me what a bunch of assholes those three were and offered to stay with me on the way back to my car. My previous neighbour was also a middle aged Aussie bogan too who used to call me a faggot and my mother a “fag breeder” too. Sadly there is a lot of those types where I live. It is known for being the less desirable end of Sydney and no gay guys who could actually afford better would ever choose it over other parts of this otherwise very gay friendly city and even our migrant population features a lot of cultures from highly conservative backgrounds too (lots of Arabs, Indians and Muslims) which I have had issues with going further back when I was in my teens. I distinctly remember a group of them physically abuse male students in high school if they perceived them as looking too feminine/gay. Their comments on social media these days can be unbelievably homophobic too. So many disgusting anti-gay hate-spewing from Muslims on social media. I wish we’d stop constantly giving them the benefit of the doubt or social victim status when they can be just as bad as conservative white boomers. Growing up “fag” and “that’s so gay” were common slurs, along with “retard” too but I chalk that up to being typical “edgy” early 2000’s slang. I do find it funny when I see it on South Park or comedy movies made around that time since I know it’s just done in satire.

    The last instance where I got called as such and it clearly wasn’t in jest has admittedly been a few years ago now so either the culture here has changed for the better or I’ve just been very lucky (and don’t go out in leather pants anymore). My shit for brains neighbour finally got kicked out of the rental next door and younger demographics now entering the adult world seem more open minded. I work in hospitality so it’s a good group of people I spend most of my time around. Assholes don’t last long in that line of work or would ever consider doing it in the first place. I’d never want to work a trade or factory job though because that attracts a different crowd. I wouldn’t want to offend all the “real men” with my barely detectable gayness. It bothers some people because it makes them uncomfortable, like we’re actually going to be into their old, fat, unwashed, alcoholic asses or that we’re perverts or crawling with diseases or god knows what. Speaking of god, just like you seem to be aware of already – just think about how many people have been *brainwashed* by religious bullshit too (as I mentioned in my first paragraph). It’s a fucking cancer on society and nothing will change my mind about that. Or they just have this preconceived notion of what a man is “supposed” to be and act like. There’s still men who think it’s “gay” to even wash your ass in the shower. You can’t reason with stupid.

29. Some of these words like fag were used with various meaning in how they were said. Like shit or fuck they were meant as emphasis to a situation. Oh that’s the shit right there can mean it’s the best where, this is nothing but shit means it’s all bad. Words like fag could be used in a brutally mean and nasty way or it could just be a teasing way. So you had various groups who would use it . Some you wouldn’t want to be around while others you could say stop being a jackass and it wasn’t a mean or vindictive situation. I’m not trying to make excuses here I’m just telling you how it was. And it’s not just context in which words are used that matters but with what emotion is behind it. Like have you been around ppl who are really hateful and they use a word whatever it may be and you recoil from the feeling behind it? Like it’s not the words as much as the intensity of the hate behind it? I remember certain times like that and it’s those times and those who said it that made the biggest impact.

30. I really don’t care what words other people use. I couldn’t imagine being fragile enough emotionally to care about what names someone is calling me.

31. We used gay to describe bad things or something was lame. If someone was acting girly or getting too close to others generals the “are you gay, bruv” would come out.

    If someone actually was gay, if they were uncomfortable about it, they kept it to themselves. That’s all in general and in an educational space.

    I know in the black community, though they’re more tolerant than they used to be, there’s still a “batty boi”, or accusing others manhood and the reaction can be very visible. Depending the homophobia is either perpetuated by the men or women, I mean, it might not matter but the context is different.

32. People often forget how the early to mid 2000s was dominated by the classic “that’s gay” in response to something that was dumb or stupid. In my experience, it’s more or less my friends and I giving each other shit, but no one is actually homophobic.

33. I think it’s only a slur if you use it in a negative context. There is a difference between saying “oh your so gay! Lol 😉” and saying “no guys allowed! 👿” context changes everything.

34. My gay brother does

35. When young it’s constant, but honestly not mean spirited from what I saw, just moronic in the way young guys are morons.

    As you get older, if you mature, you look back and say “wow, we were morons”

    Now *actual* homophobia, meaning having a real problem with gay people, is a totally different thing.

    Prevalence? If we’re talking about the former, idiot HS guys using “gay” as a kind of soft insult, pretty universal. The latter, which evolves to actual violence in the worst cases, seems to be cultural to me

36. Kinda weird but I think older men and younger gay guys has given me the most grief. Older men make jokes at how effeminate men are gay and or do like a effeminate voices. Or really weird sexual jokes in a “gay context.”

    Although the gay men aren’t exactly homophobic, but certainly queerphobic. Might not be what you are looking for, but of all the gay men I’ve come out to, almost all of them has hit on me. But more in a rapey way. Saying they can change me, I am just repressed because I haven’t given them a chance, touching my crotch saying they want me, etc.

    Most straight men seems just confused but want to be supportive I guess. At least when it is IRL. Online straight men seems kinda terrible is my impression. It doesn’t really take much to get some hate for saying something that isn’t in line with being straight. I am sick, inhuman, groomer etc.

    And now realise you were specifically asking for slurs and not just general homophobia. F*g, and such isn’t something I really hear anymore.

37. I was born in the late 90s. Slurs weren’t a very big thing for me growing up, it was more in how people talked about gay people; they didn’t understand it and just thought it was odd. No one in particular was very against it, even the conservatives around me. People just thought it was weird, or gross, but not in a “kill the gays” kinda way. More in a “you do you but stay away from me” kinda way.

    Obviously that’s an anecdotal answer, and not everyone’s experience was the same, but frankly nowadays, it’s so rare to here someone say “fag” or “queer” in a way that’s intending offense that it’s not really worth the effort to call it out. I’d focus more on cultivating understanding and normalizing it. Since I grew up with gay culture (being gay myself) it isn’t foreign to me in the slightest, and despite presenting masculine, people are surprised to see how relaxed I am when it comes to lgbt stuff before they find out/are informed I’m gay. Normalizing it is the path we’re on now; helping non-lgbt people realize it just really is not as big a deal as they think it is.

38. So I’m not openly bi but I just embrace it, if someone’s genuinely trying to be rude then it might take a sec for me to care but it rarely happens bc most people see me as straight

    Insults are just meaningless BS to get a rise out of someone so I don’t care

39. I train BJJ at a school with a couple trans women. The other day one of them called a straight cisman gay for loosing to her. Fucking hilarious. I think there is a way to use them for humor but, most people lack the nuance to do so effectively. I’ll add that, you have to know people pretty well to be able to pull it off, there’s almost no way to do it effectively if you don’t know the people you’re joking with well.

40. I only hear homophobic slurs now from immature kids and teenagers or adults who haven’t grown up

41. I don’t care. It’s easier to not care what people say because you can’t control what people say, so just make it not affect you personally.

    I mean, I’m not gay to begin with, but still.

42. I grew up saying them. I stopped when I got to college.

    Every now and then it’ll slip out when a dude is being annoying though.