What is Homophobia, Again?

(S)

Recently (and pretty hilariously, to me) Wilfrid Fox Napier, a South African Catholic cardinal told the Mail and the Guardian that “I can’t be accused of homophobia, because I don’t know any homosexuals.” Well, it was hilarious, and then it wasn't, because really? But damn, I didn’t know there were rules and regulations to homophobia. If you don’t know any QUILTBAGs, then you can’t be bigoted – silly me, I thought it was whether anything bigoted is said. It does seem that I need to reevaluate what homophobia actually is, because my definition is very different.

Someone shouted "Faggot" at me in the street

The Manchester Mincers Parade 2011 (S)

"Don't mince!" I remember my father kept saying. "Mince?", I thought, "What does that even mean?", I didn't understand. I was what? Five to eight years-old? I found out, after a long time of my Dad saying this to me, that it meant to walk in a certain way; a bit flamboyantly, effeminate, swishy - those are some words often used to describe it. I think I actually just asked him straight out what it meant one day, annoyed that I was still failing to "not mince", whatever that meant. For me, I was doing nothing wrong, nothing out-of-the-ordinary, I was just walking. It genuinely troubled me. I was failing to walk "properly" - or as I see it now, fit into a "straight" box.

I was just thinking about this this morning on my way to the tram stop. This evening, some stranger finished this article for me. I was insulted in the street, loudly.

Why Gays can be the Biggest Bitches

Recently I was floating around Twitter and came across this post from Hommemaker.com about why gays hate their bodies.

A lot of it is sadly true in a lot of cases. Oh dear.

Another thing that shamelessly strikes me about us is how bitchy some of us can be, and how we really don't feel the need to give two sh*ts, and how we're proud of it.

And so, I present to you my deeply-researched (maybe not), highly-acclaimed (maybe not) social study (in the loosest sense of the term) on why us gays can be the biggest bitches of all the bitches in Bitchtown.

How Being Casual is not Always OK

Say hello to the first two posts when you search it on Tumblr...

This is not a happy post. It features gratuitous use of a derogatory word that many find offensive. Anyone reading should consider themselves sufficiently warned.

So a while back, Mees posted an article about the use of the word “faggot” on Internet sites like 4Chan and Reddit, and after reading it I had to have a good long think about my own views about it. What follows is an extremely long rant which some people may disagree with.

4chan, Reddit, and the word "faggot"

This article may be considered controversial and contains harsh language, be advised.

A while ago, I saw a post on Reddit. It showed this thread from 4chan(an image board where people post about a variety of topics, sometimes funny, but most of the time completely crazy). 4chan is known for using the word “faggot” a lot. But 4chan is not as anti-gay as it might appear. They use the word so much that it doesn’t even represent gay people anymore. This post started a flame war about the word "faggot". At first, I found this flame war to be completely useless, but then, it made me realise something very important. I’ll tell you all about it.