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BlindSite posted:One thing I am curious of though, I've been guilty myself and I've heard people who're pretty accepting of all genders, races, sexualities etc of occasionally jokingly calling someone a "fag" or saying "that's gay" in place of "that's lame". I guess the whole south park episode on the issue kind of sums that one up in terms of not realising its insensitive but it's not meant in a hateful way to anyone gay (yes before SJW jump on me here, I know that doesn't make it ok). Is that something that gives you the shits or offends you or does it not bother you? I'm a dude in the same boat the OP is, opting for the 'Omission' path. My family by in large wouldn't approve much of my sexuality, so to avoid drama, I just avoid the topic. 3 of my closest friends know, and that's probably the way it will stay for the foreseeable future. Anyway, this question kind of bugs me because I don't think there will ever be a consensus, but just a series of data points. I personally don't care about the language one uses as long as it's not actively used as an insult to a person or a sexuality. Context matters and the 'That's gay' vs 'That's lame' scenario is a really good example of where I feel it's completely inoffensive. More importantly, it's not worth policing that language. I feel like the biggest success the gay community has had is that it's approached universal acceptance at a rapid pace over the last 20 years and continues to do so. The community has work to do left on the 'equal rights' front, but we are getting there, and it's quickly become an issue of 'when' and less of an issue of 'if'. I feel this is largely the result of the gay community accepting the help, friendship and support of those around them at face value. The inclusionary response from both the gay community and the straight community that supports the gay rights movement has together paved the way for gay acceptance to be hugely successful in a relatively short period of time, which leads us to your question. If you start policing the language of people, you are drawing a line in the sand and saying, 'this isn't acceptable. I don't accept this language'. In doing so, you are saying, 'change, or you don't really count as a support for our cause'. That kind of mindset is extremely dangerous and if we aggressively police language, we risk alienating people who would otherwise support us. To that end, I think it's really important for any social movement to think very hard about what terms they absolutely do not want to hear, because if you are going to spend all your time telling people to not use what amounts to trivial language, you'll quickly find yourself with fewer casual supporters and left with nothing but the diehard, which is not an effective way of winning the acceptance of the masses. I think hard-core feminism is extremely guilty of this and it's partially why there seems to be a non-trivial amount of backlash against the movement and the people involved with the movement. I also think this is also where the transgender community needs to be exceedingly careful when picking their battles. Expecting people to use the correct pronouns for the gender you identify with is probably a battle worth having. Expecting people to immediately learn A complete set of new gender-neutral pronouns is probably a bad idea. The entire point of a social movement is to be as inclusionary as possible. It shouldn't matter if it's a member of your community, someone who is passionate about social issues or someone who just thinks there is a wrong that's worth right-ing, they should be invited to be a part of your group. Taking offense to someone because they don't use all the pronouns on that list is a great way of pushing someone from, 'I want to see your community treated as equals and will at least recognize that there is a social injustice here' into 'I don't care about that movement' or worse, 'I don't like the people in that movement'. There is a cost to policing language and that those in the various communities need to be very careful about what, and how much, they police. Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 08:42 on May 12, 2015 |
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May 12, 2015 08:34
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 08:56 |
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