June 28, 2007

‘Dude, You’re a Fag’

“There’s a faggot over there! There’s a faggot over there! Come look!” Brian, a senior at “River” High School yelled to a group of 10 year-old boys. The group of boys dashed after Brian as he ran down the hallway, towards the presumed “faggot.” Peering down the hallway I saw Brian’s friend, Dan, waiting for the boys. As the boys came into his view, Dan pursed his lips and began sashaying toward them. He swung his hips exaggeratedly and wildly waved his arms on the end of which his hands hung from limp wrists. To the boys Brian yelled, referring to Dan, “Look at the faggot! Watch out! He’ll get you!” In response, the 10 year olds screamed in terror and raced back down the hallway.

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I watched scenes like this play out daily while conducting research for my book Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. I saw and heard boys imitate presumed faggots and hurl the fag epithet so frequently at one another that I came to call it a “fag discourse.” I use the term fag and not gay, advisedly. Boys at River High repeatedly differentiated fags from gay men. For these boys gay men could still be masculine, whereas a fag could never be masculine. Thus the term “gay” functioned as a generic insult meaning “stupid” or “lame” whereas “fag” invoked a very specific gendered slur, directed at other boys. For these boys a fag was a failed, feminine man who, in all likelihood, was also gay. Boys participated in a fag discourse to ensure that others saw them as masculine by renouncing any fag-like behavior or same-sex desire. They did this by imitating fags and calling other boys fags. Boys imitated fags by lisping, mincing and pretending to sexually desire men, drawing laughs from male audiences who howled at these imitations.

They frantically lobbed the fag epithet at one another, in a sort of compulsive name calling ritual. In the context of River High (the pseudonym of the school where I conducted this research) being called a fag had as much to do with failing at tasks of masculinity as it did with sexual desire. More often than not these fag-like behaviors were those associated with femininity. Exhibiting stupidity, emotions, or incompetence, caring too much about clothing, touching another guy, or dancing were all things which could render a boy vulnerable to the fag epithet. In this sense what I call a fag discourse is not just about homophobia, it is about a particularly gendered homophobia as these renouncements of the fag are as much about repudiating femininity as they are about denying same-sex desire.

After listening to my tales about adolescent masculinity at River High people often ask me if this is a phase peculiar to high school, one that boys leave behind as they enter young adulthood and college. While the intensity of the fag discourse may decline with age, observations of and discussions with college students indicate that the gendered rituals central to adolescent masculinity do not disappear as youth leave high school and move to college. While college classrooms are often constructed as non-homophobic and gender equitable spaces and while many colleges have anti-bias policies that cover gay people, students enter the classroom having been steeped in the fag discourse during their former school experiences. Additionally, some college students spend some of their non-class time (after all, courses are only a part of the college experience) engaging in masculinity rituals reminiscent of those I saw at River High.

Two years ago a student reminded me about the way in which the fag discourse might color students’ understandings of what they learn in college classrooms. During my senior seminar entitled “Masculinities,” Bradley, a former Marine and football player, continually sat back of the classroom arms folded defiantly, sneering at students’ attempts at sociological analyses of inequality. As a result, I found my self surprised when he visited my office hours. Apparently inspired by a piece on the social construction of gender in childhood, Bradley poked his head in to my office asking, “You got a sec, teach?” I said “Sure,” taken aback that after his angry outbursts in class he wanted to speak with me.

As he folded himself in to what now seemed a ridiculously small chair he asked, “Teach, now, I have no problem raising a girl to be tough, but what am I gonna do if my son wants to play with Barbie dolls?” I couldn’t answer before he began to tell a story of childhood gender socialization. “You see,” he told me, “when I was little I loved playing with Barbies. My sister, she always told me to put ‘em away. One day she got so fed up she dragged me outside and shoved Barbies in all my pockets and made me stand there while my friends laughed at me.” We spent the next hour discussing a sociological analysis of his experience, how boys have to deny femininity and weakness or suffer teasing and harassment. Bradley, in this instance, serves as a classic example of the legacy of the fag discourse, the way in which some young men might come to class shaped by negative memories of gendered norms. Like some other young men in my classes, Bradley learned early in life to renounce femininity and stereotypically feminine interests or suffer ridicule.

These sorts of classroom experiences to which faculty are privy are only a small part of the college experience for many students. Students play sports, go to parties, organize clubs and pledge fraternities and sororities. In my book I note that the fag discourse runs particularly rampant in primarily male spaces. In auto-shop or the weight-room at River High, boys constantly insinuated that other boys were having sex with one another, that the friend sitting next to them on a weight bench was a fag or that their buddy across the room “loves the cock.” Similarly, on college campuses primarily male organizations such as fraternities are particularly fertile ground for the fag discourse. Fraternity members have told me that their pledging rituals are filled with references to femininity and faggots. In these stories fraternity brothers humiliate pledges by teasing them for being feminine or gay. One fraternity member showed me a picture of his fraternity’s relatively mild hazing rituals in which four pledges stood against the kitchen wall. Each boy’s face sported lipstick, blush and eye shadow. One pledge’s hair stuck out from his head in pony tails and another in braids. Other fraternity brothers reported to me that they had to describe themselves as “cum coveting,” “cock craving” “faggot magnets,” while fraternity brothers laughed at them.

A look at other fraternities indicates that the rituals described to me by these fraternity members were not isolated ones. Last year, for instance, at the University of Vermont fraternity members were accused of forcing pledges to wear cowboy gear while listening to homophobic insults, an activity seemingly inspired by the movie Brokeback Mountain. Not long ago a fraternity member at the University of Texas was found dead after a night of partying, with homophobic epithets such as “fag” scrawled across his torso and legs. Sometimes fraternities do hold their members accountable for engaging in this type of gendered homophobia. For instance, a member of a Dartmouth College fraternity called a passerby a “fag,” inspiring his fraternity brothers to hold a panel on inclusivity entitled, “Don’t yell fag from the porch.”

It seems that the fag discourse, while particularly pervasive in the social pressure cooker that is high school, doesn’t disappear once young men reach college. While my book documents the sort of gendered homophobic teasing that constitutes masculinity in adolescence, a similar sort of fag discourse is far from absent in a college setting. As with the 10 year-old boys at River High, college men are still watching out for the faggot who might get them, whether that faggot is part of their memory as with Bradley and his Barbies or a part of their social worlds in which they label each other fags as part of fraternity rituals. The official line of most universities, espoused by administrators, teaching assistants, and faculty members, is that the learning process should be non-homophobic and gender equitable. But, faculty, administrators and teaching assistants would do well to remember that the academic portion of college is only a small part of the student experience. Indeed, the world students inhabit and construct outside the walls of our classrooms and offices is a different one than the sheltered worlds within it.

C.J. Pascoe is a sociologist at the Digital Youth Project of the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California at Berkeley.

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Comments

How to change campus culture

Our campus is currently examining campus climate and culture. From surveys of students, the two hottest topics are related to race/ethnicity and homophobia. How can an institution make the decision to be more inclusive — especially in view of the co-curricular life on campus which includes Greek Life? Only about a fourth of our students are Greek but more than half of all students describe campus as homophobic. The fraternity system is not the only reinforcement of these values.

Midwest Private, at 9:10 am EDT on June 28, 2007

Homophobic Role Models

It seems reasonable to assert silence is complicity and, when it comes to the pervasiveness of homophobia, the topic may have been let out of the closet but the discourse needed to explore the human condition that is homophobia remains quiet.

America may have been a willful participant in the so-called Sexual revolution, but, generally, the society is unnaturally resistant to engaging the dialogue about homophobia. Besides some elemental courses that eventually focus on discrimination, equality, and tolerance, the discourse on homophobia is reserved for labels, name-calling, and renunciation.

As Pascoe mentions in his Dude, You’re a Fag article, “... the academic portion of college is only a small part of the student experience. Indeed, the world students inhabit and construct outside the walls of our classrooms and offices is a different one than the sheltered worlds within it” outside world doesn’t do a very good job of engaging the dialogue either.

For example, it’s sadly and pathetically more prevalent for the movie industry to promote violence than tolerance ... heads being blown off is sensationally common; and the continuance of the dehumanization of women portrayed as objects and oppressed servants.

Law-makers continue to resist crafting legislation that makes the punishment fit the crimes against gays, lesbians, and transgenders.

Religious leaders only engage the dialogue on some rudimentary, surface level where the escape clause is always the same, i.e. God doesn’t like homos and their ilk and images of Sodom and Gomorrah are invoked.

And the lobotomized talking heads that pervade the TV news, talk shows, and seemingly every corner of talk radio are hardly role models for tolerance or civil discourse. The American media landscape has been Koulterized -and in the process the rationalization is argued as free speech trumping hate speech.

In the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC is the most poignant message of all ... words attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller ... words that should cause every man, woman, and child to pause and reflect:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Michael Chiaradonna, at 10:35 am EDT on June 28, 2007

Fags and Homos

Glad to see this discussion. This problem seems almost invisible, or at least silent, among women. Why?

A somewhat humorous anecdote: I work to close fake schools and prosecute the users of fake degrees. At one point some of the people who run fake schools found out that I am gay and started calling me The Fat Homo in their various web postings. They did not realize that the commission for which I work contained at least one gay member. Therefore each time I shared the latest updates with the commissioners, they were even MORE supportive of my work, contrary to the hopes of the perps.

I’m tempted to have t-shirts made showing a picture of me with pansies in one hand and a.45 in the other, saying “Greetings from the Fat Homo. Any questions?”

One can shrink from this kind of thing or one can face it, as it were, man to man.

Alan Contreras, State of Oregon, at 11:30 am EDT on June 28, 2007

River High

Although not pertinent to the article, C.J. Pascoe is female, not male (that’s Ms. Professor to you!). Although I went to high school in a previous era (1960s-1970s), things then were much the same. This was in Martinez, CA and I can’t help but wonder about the location of the pseudonymous River High—somewhere in eastern Contra Costa County??

Lamont Lindstrom, at 12:05 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

A legislative solution?

Re: Michael’s comments

I got made fun of an awful lot in grade school, enought that I took to walking (a block) home for lunch every day. Still, I felt quite persecuted.

I had good parents that somehow made me understand that this didn’t reflect on my self-worth. They must have brought it up with the principal, the last remaining old Nun at a Catholic school that now employed lay people.

I had a couple of talks with her that I remember. (She talked, I listened.) She basically said I needed to have a thicker skin. Today I do, and I realize that the kind of justice I desired at the time wouldn’t have accomplished anything good.

We don’t need a legislative solution to insults, no matter how hurtful. We need to learn to grow up. If you tell a persecuted student that their distressed reaction to teasing is right and good, you affirm the power the teasers have worked hard to obtain over that student’s life. If you teach them not to react at all, the teasers will get bored and give up.

Sticks and Stones...

Samwise, at 12:20 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

I’ll buy!

Alan, if you print up shirts (www.cafepress.com is one place to get it done) I’ll buy, though I’m neither fat nor homo. Shirts like you suggest, variations on the theme even, might be an interesting fund raiser for Alliance clubs or groups on campuses.

On a serious note, we recently conducted a survey on campus and most of the gblt students felt the campus was not particularly safe or welcoming, with the use of the fag and gay slurs as part of the problem. Interestingly, about the time Imus was making his “nappy headed ho” comments, there were a number of homophobic slurs in the press (I’ll dig them up if you like, but I should be working on my summer class right now) that went unreported. As some have noted on our campus, glbt students are part of a somewhat invisible minority until they choose to out themselves, and often even if they don’t.

bradley bleck, instructor at Spokane Falls CC, at 1:00 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

Silent Complicity

Even though gender/sexuality is never the subject matter of my courses, I make it a point not to silently let “fag” comments go unchecked in the classroom.

Insofar is college students are concerned, the young men who use such terms don’t expect to be ‘called’ on it—when you do bring it to their attention (I do it quite sarcastically, usually something like “That’s real mature, Jim") and it tends to get the point across.

Male Professor, at 2:20 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

sticks and stones?

I disagree with the notion that students who are on the receiving end of bigoted remarks need to get a thicker skin. While it may work for some, that notion that it will then work for others is not necessarily so.

Similarly, would we tell a student who is called a nigger, a spic, a chink, a jap, a whatever, that they need to get a thicker skin and just ignore the racist? I think not, and hope not. Why then, should we tel glbt students something along this line, to simply ignore similarly bigoted comments?

bradley bleck, instructor at Spokane Falls CC, at 2:40 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

Re: bradley bleck

Ok, let me play devil’s advocate here for a bit. I was just saying something about how reacting against insults only encourages abuse. bradley says:

“we recently conducted a survey on campus and most of the gblt students felt the campus was not particularly safe or welcoming, with the use of the fag and gay slurs as part of the problem.”

Now one of two things is going on here regarding the word “safe". Either the gblt students at bradley’s community college are a) flipping their lid over basically nothing and generally imagining a violent bigot behind every bush, or b) they are stretching the word “safe” beyond good english. (I’m ruling out the possibility of the college actually teeming with people who actually want to cause injury to gblt students.)

Neither case sheds a nice light on the lgbt students. But I don’t blame them because these are young adults that are being told by the educational establishment since childhood that the world is full of people who vicerally hate them and that their rights are eggregiously violated every time somebody utters a gay slur. I’m not sure which is more obviously false.

So sorry for playing the troll, but it seems to me that earnest, moralizing discussions like this one only fan the flames by encouraging gblt students to be hypersensitive to the point of hysterics (which happens to be a common stereotype of gays, not helpful!).

Maybe these students would be better served if the faculty instead encouraged them to keep their chins up and ignore the inevitable potty-mouths.

Sam, at 2:55 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

Gays just need to quit playing the discriminated card and start acting like role models—a superior group that others should strive for. Look at cultural creation, especially urban regentrification—gays lead the way. Cities that are ‘cool’ generally have a big gay population, and cities that aren’t cool, try to court gays, at least, if they are smart. People need to be out and proud, but not just in the sense that they ‘are gay’; they need to be assertive about our low crime rates, high education, and cultural creativitiy. If we told kids the t.v. they are watching was produced by a dominant group—gays—they might start thinking differently.

Although this is not to put down the study—it is excellent. But I think that only when gays step to the plate themselves will anyone follow. You can lecture about some abstract thing, but unless there is concrete empiricism and experience, it will fail.

gay grad student, at 4:45 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

I’m a terrible person

“would we tell a student who is called a nigger, a spic, a chink, a jap, a whatever, that they need to get a thicker skin and just ignore the racist?”

bradley, that is exactly what I would tell them. I’ve been on the receiving end of abuse far worse than racism. They can’t ruin your day with words unless you let them. Its time we stopped giving that power to people.

Sam, at 4:50 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

Why only hold males accountable?

Seems to me that the background given in this article would suggest the strong influence that women have over boys at such young ages is a viable culprit to re-inforcing such behavior. (Football Marine and his barbies and the mean Sister that gave him the complex — who’s at fault? Football Marine or the Sister?)

Let’s blame lefty-elitists for making fun of the “stupid redneck” while we’re at it — because it’s all the left’s fault...

Give me a break, women do as much (if not more) as men in raising homophobic boys (AND GIRLS)! This is a nice stab at something honest, but totally biased in a PC manner that sickens me — this is everyone’s doing, not simply “boys” or “men".

Robert, at 4:50 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

No, Sam, there aren’t monsters behind every bush, but there are enough gay slurs to make one worry IF there is a monster behind the next bush.

Twice, I’ve been accosted on the streets of a nearby city by 20-something year old males. Both times there were more than one of them, and both times my girlfriend and I were afraid. We didn’t know if the verbal assault would turn into a physical assault. Luckily for us, lesbians are not usually the target of the physical “gay bashing” that occurs. But that fact didn’t make us any less afraid.

I recently learned that my relatively-enlightened brother was unaware that you can be killed “just for being gay.” Then, over the course of the next six weeks I sent him three newspaper articles reporting three separate incidents across the U.S. of gay men being beaten to death — because they were gay. Three in six weeks. And those were only the ones I happened to hear about.

So, the fear is real and the slurs contribute to a whole group of people being afraid. Is that the kind of world/schools/college campuses we want?

Linda, Northern New York, at 5:45 pm EDT on June 28, 2007

We didn’t cause the problem

Growing up in a part of fly-over USA routinely laughed-at in Ivy academia as not “diverse” — I cannot recall anyone sober using words in public such as “fag, queer, b——, h-, n——-, c—t, cracker, redneck, honky, spic, jungle-bunny,” etc. Such a person would be shunned as crude, vile, and disgusting.

However, when I got to college, I learned all those terms. What a lovely experience.

Buzz, at 7:40 am EDT on June 29, 2007

Re: Linda

Sounds like you live in a bad area. I really think you’d be in just as much danger if you weren’t gay.

In fact, I don’t trust news reports that people are killed just because they are gay. Usually there are drugs involved or whatever, and of course somebody who is homicidal isn’t going to have qualms about using gay slurs. Does that mean the person would have been safe if they were straight? Hardly.

Sam, at 9:05 am EDT on June 29, 2007

tunnel vision and blinders

Sam, haven’t you even heard of Matthew Shepherd? He was killed for nothing other than being gay. Just because someone may have been drinking before killing someone hardly makes the alcohol the reason or rationale. If they didn’t hate gays before drinking, if they didn’t think homophobic behavior was okay, they sure wouldn’t act on it just because they are drunk. While I wouldn’t say you are a terrible person based on your posts, If anything I’d say you blame the victims for those who act against them. I would also say that you expect others to conform to your world view and that you can’t see beyond your worldview. Not only does one-size not fit all, but your size may have little or no relevancy beyond yourself.

bradley bleck, instructor at Spokane Falls CC, at 1:10 pm EDT on June 29, 2007

Sexism

It is all about sexism — which is alive and well and kicking — and sexism is a big part of homophobia HELLO! peaceleigh

Leigh, at 1:45 pm EDT on June 29, 2007

Show me where I blame the victim, bradley. In the case of abusive language alone, I believe that people have the power to neutralize the offense by simply not caring. That is not blaming the victim, and I certainly wouldn’t try to apply that logic to actual violence.

Now, the Matthew Shepard case doesn’t fit the mold for the kind of fear that gay students are taught to feel. Take a perusal of the wikipedia article. They first agreed to give him a ride home, ostensibly without ill intent. He sexually harrassed them. They beat him up and robbed him, but they took it too far, probably because of alcohol and drug use, and he died. If Matthew had been a girl and the killers had been gay, it might have turned out the same way.

One event 9 years ago shouldn’t make gblt college students fearful. But some people have a vested interest in them remaining fearful because it sustains and legitimizes the politically correct narrative of gays as victims who a personally violated every time someone says “fag". I think the commenter “gay grad student” has a much better perspective on things.

Sam, at 3:00 pm EDT on June 29, 2007

As for my worldview, I prefer that others conform to good common sense, but I don’t expect it, ha!

Sam, at 3:00 pm EDT on June 29, 2007

Sam, anyone who thinks that the men who murdered Matthew Shepard were ‘without ill intent’ and just ‘took it too far,’ is someone with issues deeper than what we can cover here. Peace to you.

Crazy Man, at 4:00 pm EDT on June 29, 2007

So, the thing is...

One of the bigger problems I see in this entire discussion is the nature of the means used to assert the perspective that homosexuality is oppressed in some way.

It must be acknowledged that those who profess the belief that homosexuality is “normable” and is not in anyway disordered (to assert that something is, “natural,” or, “an acceptable lifestyle,” is, in short, saying that, “We believe we are being told that we are unnatural and that our lifestyle is disordered") have a certain set of very fundamental beliefs about the nature of life. Those who are opposed to this have other fundamental tenets. Anyone who insists that their beliefs deserve primacy in all circumstances and does not expect to meet resistance is rather nuts. Unfortunately, however, this is an all-too-common of a case in the debate over homosexual normalcy.

There are, if you will, fundamentalists in both camps who have the opinion that they ought have the right to be heard without contradiction. This is stupidity; I (an anti-democrat who dislikes the Republican party) do not expect that I would be warmly received by libertarians or socialists. Actually, I’m sure that I would find myself arguing with them quite readily. Why, then, do people expect a warm reception from an opposing school of thought in this issue?

Yet, all of this said, one still needs to deal with two important issues: whether homophobia is truly prevalent and whether there is any true gl* (not all groups support all oppressed or perceivably oppressed sexual relations so gl* will assume gl, glb, glbt etc. organizations) paranoia.

Now, much of what relates to “homophobia” has been addressed earlier in this statement, but it is important to speak to it directly. It seems, at least to this author, that the statements discussed above are not specifically directed against known homosexuals-in-fact. That is to say, those people who are openly homosexual such that the entire community is made aware. These words, then, are more to assert that there is an alpha-maleism present which involves this particular assertive language. It is the language of a particular sub-culture.

It is of note that this culture also has a tendency to be derogatory and demeaning towards women. “You are such a b*tch,” or, “You are a woman,” is something which is actually in some variants of this culture a good deal more common than, “You are such a f@g.” The idea that this is caused by a type of phobia is actually misplaced, however, as women are sought to be possessed and domineered (especially as the men in this grouping age). Rather, it is more rational to say that all similar comments actually refer to the masculinity of the individual and not the nature of the word in question.

There are, of course, those who exhibit actual and external hatred of homosexuality; but one must ask if this is actually cause by the homosexuality in itself, the difference associated with it, or the fact that it directly opposes what the person believes. And considering the fact that often those who are attempting to normalize the behavior act through the laws and the courts instead of convincing people and making them comfortable, are we really surprised that they would react that way?

This leads us to the second question, is there gl* paranoia? It seems that, at least on some level, the answer is yes.

Obviously, if any form of minority feels and/or is consistently told that it is oppressed it will be at least slightly paranoid. I will even go so far as to say that a number of persons have been oppressed for these dispositions (for lack of a better word).

All of that said, there is decidedly some excessive paranoia by any rational standard. Is it really necessary if someone opposes homosexual marriage to call them a homophobe? This has been a more than common occurrences yet it is acceptable. Is it really necessary to have gay pride events when people already accept homosexuality in that area? (A friend of mine relates the CMU’s GALA having a pride event. One person shouted, “We’re here and we’re queer, get used to it,” at her. Her response was classic. It was to the effect of, “I’m bi, and no one cares that you’re gay.” Another case is that there is a GALA at Westminster Choir College — the most homosexually friendly campus in NJ. It was actually my experience that there was more prejudice against heterosexuals than homosexuals). This type of behavior betrays an uneven view of reality. One should not try to gain support when there is no opposition.

I’m sure that there will be comments which follow. Hopefully I will be able to address them. For now, I believe this is sufficient.

Iggy, at 5:00 pm EDT on June 29, 2007

“All of that said, there is decidedly some excessive paranoia by any rational standard. Is it really necessary if someone opposes homosexual marriage to call them a homophobe?”

Hmmm...are you really asking this question? I’m not trying to degrade, but your long post was so intellectual that your question is bizarre.

If someone opposes a black man in the white house (because the candidate is black), does that mean the opposing person is a racist?

Well, Iggy Pop, if it looks like a donkey and smells like a donkey...

Okay, I’ll bite, at 5:55 pm EDT on June 29, 2007

I appreciate your efforts, Iggy, and it’s obvious you’re sincere, so thank you.

But concerning your statement, “Is it really necessary to have gay pride events when people already accept homosexuality in that area?” You’re misunderstanding the point.

Yes, there is a visability factor, obviously. But Pride events are more about glbt individuals building community together. Whether or not other people are accepting in that area isn’t a part of glbt individuals celebrating and connecting with each other.

Thanks, at 5:55 pm EDT on June 29, 2007

Homophobia Amongst the youth seen via Youtube

The Homophobia amongst the youth can be seen via youtube.com and other video viewing sites by doing a search for videos under the word gay. You tend to find a lot of videos that have nothing to do with being gay that are of people doing dumb stuff that are labeled gay, as in thats so gay. You will also find several videos usually of guys spoofing what they perceive to be gay male behavior. In some, two guys will kiss as part of some dare, which shows how taboo two guys kissing still is in people’s minds.

Ernestmac13, at 10:15 am EDT on June 30, 2007

Pride Events

Even in areas where Gays are excepted like San Francisco, pride events are necessary because, there are still plenty of people in the area who are not excepting. So, the presence of the festival can serve to enlighten some people, and to show others that, the gay community will not cower and go away no matter how much they hope and pray that it will.

Ernestmac13, at 10:15 am EDT on June 30, 2007

Re: crazy man

“Without ill intent” at the time they agreed to drive him home, that is. Obviously that changed. Again, I’m just basing this on the wikipedia article. If you have other sources of information about the case, please share.

Thanks for the lightning diagnosis of my deeper issues. I’m sorry you don’t feel you can help.

Sam, at 4:35 pm EDT on July 2, 2007

Re: Okay, I’ll bite

The person who left that comment should explain: What is homophobia, in your opinion? What connection do you think Iggy has missed? Go ahead and lay it out for the slow thinkers.

Sam, at 4:35 pm EDT on July 2, 2007

Sadly, college graduation doesn’t bring an end to the puerility of “Dude! You’re a fag.” It’s a game played into retirement.

Donald, at 4:40 pm EDT on July 2, 2007

homophobia as a tool of sexism

i guess i believe like some that thereis homophobia — sometimes refered to as “homo-hesitant...these are not the people that scare me — as a woman and as a queeer woman...it is the people who have “homo-rage” — they scare me. and again i think this is anothere way to keep women oppressed. How many people do not even realize that the equal rights amendment never passed? i can’t wait to see what the arguments against it will be now peaceleigh

leigh, at 3:05 pm EDT on July 3, 2007

Hi Sam, if you do some research on the web about details from the trial, you’ll find that the murders offered him a ride home with ill intent from the start — at the very least they intended to rob him. Let’s not forget that a man was murdered, and hitting-on someone in a bar is never an excuse to murder that person (if so, straight men everywhere would be in serious trouble). So, yes, I think intending to rob someone is ‘ill intent.’

I don’t think you have problems that can’t be solved with a little education, Sam.

To Sam, at 10:20 am EDT on July 5, 2007

It’s not paranoia if you know someone who...

has been beaten up for being gay, lesbian, transgender. And most LGBT know a friend who has been beaten. It’s not paranoia, it’s rational caution!

The situation is an exact parallel with women and rape. Most women know a friend who has been raped (by stranger or acquaintance). Therefore it is perfectly reasonable for women to be aware of surroundings, travel in pairs or groups, etc in dodgy settings — this is not paranoia, it’s common sense.

NancyP, at 5:30 am EDT on July 7, 2007

Excellent Article

I am transgendered. I left the male world at age 33 and I am 51 years old now. To this day my old best friend and my family will say “what?” what” “I can’t hear you” if I talk to them in a feminine voice—and my Father calls me by my birth (masculine) name instead of my legal (female)name. You may be on to something! BTW. I am Greek Orthodox and my young pastor is enlightened enough that he recomended a female saint for me to re-adapt to! So I am Maria—-Not Jayson—at communion! Thanks-enjoyed the article

Janine Bryant, at 4:05 pm EDT on May 22, 2008

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