"Gay" words and Insults.

(the censored word is the "gay" f-word) First, I would like to say that I believe that context is important, but I would generally prefer if people didn't use the word "-blam!-" (or any term referring to gay people in a negative manner) at all. However, I understand that some people use them in such a way that don't refer to homosexuality. That's fine and dandy, but I think it becomes dangerous when your use is ambiguous, which is very often the case. For instance, are you using the word "-blam!-" to attack someone by implying that they have homosexual tenancies (i.e., homosexual stereotypes and/or non-masculine behaviors), ergo, homosexuality is bad? Are you just randomly using the word as an insult where context is difficult to discern? As an outside observer, it can sometimes be difficult to tell whether it is case (i.e., you actually trying to associated homosexuality with something negative), and since LGBT people often live their lives in great fear (exemplified by the disproportionate amount of suicide/depression in our community), it is generally better to make that more clear or simply not use the word at all. Second (this piggy-backs on the first point), phrases like "That's so gay." actually have a [url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/thats-so-gay-phrase-impact-lgbt-youth_n_1837330.html]negative impact on LGBT people[/url]. Your choice of words can have lasting effects on people. Why should we care about how other people are affected by our actions? Well, because you should want to be a decent human being. When we live in a world where there is still so much homophobia, it can be difficult to tell whether someone is using these insults to infer that homosexuality is wrong or not. Unless, your use is absolutely clear, then I don't think you should use those words to refer to people/things negatively. You maybe talking with your friend about something while using those words (in a negative manner), but another person might unintentionally overhear it, and come to the conclusion that you are putting down LGBT folk. I am not just talking about the case where the third party identifies as LGBT, it could be someone who, after hearing enough of homosexual slurs, comes to associate homosexuality with negativity. So using these words can also perpetuate homophobia and bigotry. That is why, I think, it is really only permissible to use those words when around your friends that understand your context. However, I would still say that it is better, generally speaking, if you refrain from using such words (in negative contexts) since you have the power to change the definitions, which I will mention in my next point. Third, I am glad that you mentioned "queer" and how gay people "took" it back. That's great, but so many people still use it as an insult despite our community pushing to embrace the word. You say that language changes, which is undeniably true, but language is generally controlled by the majority, so if the majority use it as an insult, most people will associate it will negativity. Why is this important to talk about? Because the vast majority of the world, and consequently the majority of the people who use "gay words", are straight. They have much more power to decide that words that previously referred to homosexuality, now refer to something that is considered to be negative. This is unfair since the LGBT community, the community that is most likely to be affected by the use/change of these words, doesn't have much power in the change of definitions. For instance, it is very unfortunate that almost every word that refers to the LGBT community can be used in a negative manner (e.g., gay, fag, -blam!-, homo, homosexual, queer, etc.) The LGBT community has very little power in affecting the common use of those words, so if the people decide that those words are supposed to refer to negative things, what words are left for us to use to safely refer to ourselves? Do we have to come up with new words and hope the people don't decide that those definitions change and are deemed negative by the majority? That doesn't seem right. I believe it is best if people just stopped using these words in a negative manner since it is unfair that you get to decide how a word is used that probably won't affect you very much in the long run. This was originally going to just be a Youtube comment in response to a recent video, but it got kind of large, so I decided to make a thread about it.