One day, on a school bus, when I was about 14yo, some bully said loudly "he's a fag" in response to some altercation about something stupid.
I looked directly at this person and asked "so what if I am ?".
There was absolutely no response.
Haters need to be challenged immediately, if you have the opportunity. I take it whenever I can.
@jab01701mid @zleap wait, if you’re a “fag” then why were you on the bus instead of your Harley revving your engine and annoying the hell out of everyone you encounter?
It was stated this happened when he / she was 14 so still at school.
@zleap @jab01701mid oh so he was still too young to legally ride a bike.
I hope you got the reference since I was talking about an episode of South Park where the parents thought the kids were homophobic bc they kept using that term when they thought is was for selfish asshole bikers that everyone hates, not gay people.
I get you, this is the problem that a word can have different meanings and contexts, and if you use it, it can be misunderstood by others.
Over here in the UK a 'fag' is slang for cigarette, faggots are actually food, mostly from northern England AFAIK, however this is or was also a derogatory and offensive term for people who are gay, not used as much now of course.
This is the nice thing about fedi, we can learn about different terms, different cultures and hopefully avoid misunderstanding. I don't watch South Park so clearly didn't get the reference, which makes it harder to respond.
I like the original retort 'so what if I am' that is one way to respond regardless of what the other person may mean or intend by their actions / words.
@zleap @jab01701mid it was a great response from the guy, especially for being so young. I saw a speaker make a great point once. Words are just words and can’t hurt us unless we let them. If someone says the meanest thing ever to us, it can really hurt. But if they said it in a language we don’t know, it has no impact on us. They said the exact same things but only 1 hurt. We didn’t understand so we couldn’t let it hurt us. When we stop letting words hurt us, people lose power over us
@zleap @jab01701mid btw, I absolutely love the decision by the gay community to use a the rainbow as a symbol to represent them. Originally it was just a nature event but it became a religious symbol about the Bible by the people that hate them most…the orthodox Christians. And the lgbt community took their symbol and made it theirs. The religious people had to lose their minds over this
@zleap @jab01701mid I was smoking on a beach while talking to a lifeguard we just befriended from Scotland. She told me to “get my fag butt out her face” bc smoke was going towards her. That’s what I think of when people say that word.
Right after, a blonde Bulgarian beauty lifeguard walked over to us. The Scot said to leave her alone bc she had a boyfriend she was “madly in love with.” Only reason I remember that is bc i lost my virginity to the Bulgarian that night. Lol