Have you been called a "faggot" to your face?

[Herman Munster]

Whether growing up in school or as an adult, how did it make you feel and how did you react?

[im10ashus]

1. Yes I have.

It used to freak me out, then it incensed me. Last time it happened, I merely said, "yes, a big one." Shut them the hell up.

[lonestarnot]

2. No, but my dogs have been called lesbians.

Heh.

[im10ashus]

3. And how did they react?

:-)

[lonestarnot]

27. They figured truth is a defense to prosecution of the matter.

heh.

[MnFats]

38. accuracy is an absolute defense against libel or slander...

..take it from a journo...

[im10ashus]

52. Smart dogs.

;-)

[CountAllVotes]

4. I've been called a dyke to my face

and the thing I find particularly curious about this is that I'm not gay!

:rofl:

IDIOTS are EVERYWHERE!

:kick:

[kestrel91316]

30. Me , too! Several times.

Generally after I've gotten uppity with some neanderthal.

[CountAllVotes]

40. that was my situation too

if you consider some drunk a "neanderthal"!

[kestrel91316]

64. No, it's the sober shitheads who like to throw that at a woman,

especially if they knows she's single.

I take the view that we should not consider it an insult if someone calls us feminists "dykes". Or lesbians. Because they is NOTHING WRONG with being a "dyke" or lesbian. We disempower them if we can laugh when they call straight women that.

[CountAllVotes]

72. well I set that awhole straight

He was drunk and was in a bar nearby where I lived at the time. His wife had just given birth to his child and was in the hospital and there the devoted husband he was at a bar drunk off his ass!

I remember I just said to him, "Why don't you sober up and go see your newly born son you freak!" and I just walked away.

:grr:

Still makes me angry some 20+ years later. It wasn't the fact that he called me a "dyke" to my face, it was the fact that he his wife has just given birth and there Mr. Wonderful was all loaded up and tossing out comments like "dyke" to anything remotely female that he saw.

I guess in retrospect, he probably didn't really care much for women did he? :shrug:

[Rhiannon12866]

78. I agree. My cousin had the same problem

Just gave birth to a little boy and her husband was supposed to call the family, but he blew it off. They're divorced now, no big surprise, but still sad, especially for the child.:-(

BTW, I love your comment...:hi:

[jollyreaper2112]

86. yeah!

Same here, and I'm not even a woman! They must have just taken a look at my stubble and thought I was really, really butch.

[niyad]

5. not faggot, but I have been called "c*** ", bitch, dyke, commie lesbo (one of my personal faves!!)

and a whole host of other such labels--all because I have always been active in the women's movement (and therefore MUST be a lesbian, correct? even though I am not) and because I wouldn't play the subservient little handmaiden.

I just laugh and say, "but, but, you say this as though it were a BAD thing" and walk away.

[im10ashus]

9. I love it!!!

"but, but, you say this as though it were a BAD thing"

GREAT RESPONSE!!!

:rofl:

[Cerridwen]

16. I used to say, "uh, huh...and?"

I like your comeback better.

:D

[and-justice-for-all]

6. I think in Jr. High School.....

...But, I didnt really understand the term back then. I think the tone in which it was used was more concerning to me then the word itself. Come to find out later that those who used the word were hypocrites, getting/giving blowjobs and jerking off together in the locker room and then turn around and call other people Faggots.

[MotorCityMan]

85. First time in Jr. high school

I was in 7th grade (1977), and I was in the drama club. At lunch time, a guy in my class walked up to me and said, "You're that faggot in that fag club".

I had to ask my mother that night what faggot meant, as I didn't know.

Not to long after that, I realized, by God, that he was right! At least in the fact that I was gay.

Last time was a few years ago in a mall, by a gang of white, gangsta wannabes. I just turned and said with a big smile, "Sure am, honey, want a date?"

[xxqqqzme]

7. I was called a baby killing faggot, in '04,

while staffing the Democratic booth at our local swap meet.

[karlrschneider]

8. Once. I punched his lights out.

It was around 1984 on the beach one night near Tampa.

[Midlodemocrat]

45. I'm sorry that happened to you.

:hug:

[karlrschneider]

48. Haha...thanks but it was no big deal. To me anyway. I often wondered how much

it cost that guy to get his broken nose fixed and the windshield on his car that my buddy smashed out with a big rock.
:D

[Midlodemocrat]

50. LOL. Okay, so I guess you got the better end of the deal!

:thumbsup:

[Zhade]

69. Good response.

NT!

[Cerridwen]

10. Nope, but I have been called a

"fa* hag." Because many of my friends at the time were...yep, you guessed it - "fa**ots." *sigh*

P.S. If we do it for ni**er, we damn sure better do it with fa**ot. Each as repulsive a word as the other.


edit: forgot important quotation marks :blush:

[yewberry]

11. I've been called "devil's issue" and "unnatural."

I'm not a lesbian, but two of my moms are.

[Bronyraurus]

19. Devil's Issue! Never heard that one before!

[yewberry]

25. I assumed it was a Catholic thing

but I didn't ask.

Meh. The individual who said it also stated that her uncle had been plagued by "feelings" all his life, but her family was proud that he wasn't gay because he'd fought off his "feelings" his whole life.

How incredibly sad is that?

[ScreamingMeemie]

I don't think it's a Catholic thing...

more of a fundie thing. I grew up Catholic and my daughter goes to a Catholic school. I don't believe I've ever heard "Devil's issue" anywhere but in "Flowers in the Attic"

[yewberry]

31. I think you're probably right.

Unfortunately, I am probably apt to blame more than I should on Catholicism. I lived in a very Catholic area.

I actually had friends' parents' forbid them from hanging out with me when I was little. That was actually more about my family being Uni-Uni, though. Also, the CCD kids used to say that I kissed the feet of idols at my church.

(Apparently, they'd a filmstrip, y'see...)
:rofl:

eta: I hope I didn't insult you. I surely didn't mean to speak badly of you or your faith.

[ScreamingMeemie]

44. Oh, I haven't been inside of a church since DOMA, but my daughter's

education had already begun and it's the best prep school in the area for college. No offense taken it just didn't sound like anything I've ever heard from a Catholic.

[Bronyraurus]

32. Ditto, Grumpy

It sounds like the cute naivete of a fundamentalist Christian protestant. And by "cute" I mean "idiotic."

[AZBlue]

63. Good thing not just one of your moms is a lesbian or that would be awkward!

:D

(did you ever watch Will & Grace? I'm paraphrasing/borrowing from them...)

[sdfernando]

12. Yes I have

At first I was angry and was about to make an equally ignorant & prejudiced remark back to him. But I realized that it would only reduce me to his level, so instead I told him I felt sorry for him. That really set him off (which is not what I wanted to do). Luckily there were enough people around watching, that he just fumed and stomped off.

[stevedeshazer]

13. Yes

I was chased up an alley and smacked around by a bunch of high school assholes who thought I was 'queer'.

I'm straight, but this made me see what gay people were going through. And that was thirty years ago.

I resolved that day to never underestimate homophobia.

They hurt what they don't understand.

[Little Wing]

14. Yes, and it didn't faze me in the slightest

But it did tell me about someone using the word

[misanthrope]

22. Ditto**nm

**

[porphyrian]

15. Yep, but I never reacted in the way they wanted, so the'd eventually leave me alone.

I'm not gay, I'm just not popular, especially not in high school. I got the standard bullying of any non-cool student, but however I reacted to their aggression (which was either very little reaction at all or something so pathetic they had to feel bad about it), the bullies would leave me alone and go for weaker, easier prey. It never made me question my sexuality, nor did it bother me more or less than any other form of bullying. The decade after that, I got my revenge by doing things and people those losers can only dream of, without dying or doing jail time. Now, I've cycled back into lameness, but I see this as temporary. Rock and roll.

[blues90]

17. Yes in around 1965

When I grew my hair very long after the Beatles . I lived in a small town at the time called Roselle in Illinois . I used to get called faggot alot with threats from ape like greasers with the hopped up cars .

I was more concerned about getting killed than being called a faggot , I was however a fast runner and not Gay but how you looked was all that mattered to these apes .

[MrSlayer]

18. Well yeah. It was quite a common term among teenagers.

I've been called it and I'm guilty of having called it to others. 99% of the time it was used during the common busting of balls that goes on amongst the guys, so I took it for the joke it was as did they. I was once hatefully called a "nigger" by a guard at a professional sports event for wearing the jersey of another team. That was very strange considering the fact that I'm a white guy.

[manic expression]

66. Same here

when I was younger it was just another word we called one another. I had to make an effort to stop saying it, and even after that it could almost slip out once in awhile (not anymore as much).

[Bronyraurus]

20. Tons of times

Didn't care.

[Madspirit]

21. When I worked at a bakery...

It was about three in the morning. I was the delivery person. I was rushing this baker who was running really late for a special order. Suddenly he grabbed this gigantic knife we used to cut huge chunks of butter and cheese, he started waving it in the air all red-faced, then he cut off his own apron and yelled at me:

"You stupid, East Texas hick dyke."

I said and this is true, "Actually I'm from Central Texas."


Lee

[Kingshakabobo]

23. Yes.

I live in a "gay neighborhood" so it comes with the territory.

Punk-ass cowards in cars. Wannabe bashers.

[tanyev]

24. No, but I haven't met Ann Coulter yet.

[nealmhughes]

26. Yes. When young it bothered me. Now it either incenses me or else

if I am feeling charitable, reply "Oh, my God! Are you asking me out? I can't believe it! I don't usually go out with fat and ugly guys..." that is only safe if with a group of friends or in public.
I ought to do what my friend does, "and say did you call me a faggot? How did you know? I don't remember you..."
Thought once at work I went out to get the pizzas for our meeting from the delivery dude and the manager of us all asked, "Where is that damned faggot from Tennessee with the pizza?" just as I walked in with them.
I simply got a hot one out of the box and smeared his face in it. Left without a word and went out to lunch for the rest of the day...Came back the next day like nothing happened.

[TroglodyteScholar]

28. Sure I've been called a faggot

But a) you have to consider the source, and b) what's so bad about faggots?

I didn't always have this attitude, but I learned it at a pretty young age. People who toss around words like that just aren't worth your time.

[PreacherCasey]

29. Faggot was an obscenely common word where I grew up. I heard it used just about every day of my life

from 7th grade until I left for college.

[Riverman]

39. Yes, around 7th grade, everybody at the catholic school called

each other a faggot, a queer, a pussy, - gay was not used then. For some it stuck, for some it did not apply and for some we looked back and wondered - what did they know?

[proud patriot]

33. I have not , but my son has

and it pissed me off .

I went to the principal and asked
if they were just as hard on homophobia
as they were racism or sexism ? She said
they are . :shrug: I just have to have
faith that it was handled .

I don't know whether my son is gay or straight
as he is only 10 . I do know that this incident
was a "teachable moment" and my son will
defend gay rights .

[Deja Q]

34. I've been called many things. Frequently too. That particular word is but one...

Especially when your own kind also calls you a "sinner", the context (never mind the struggle) loses relevance...

[GoneOffShore]

35. Yep, plenty of times- Never bothered me.

Back when I was in high school(in the 60's) and I was in the drama club. Didn't bother me, I was getting more action than the athletes, cause all the drama club girls were horny.

College, same thing, as I was one of the few straight guys in the theatre department.

My basic reaction was always, "Yeah, and?"

[Edweird]

36. Yes. It was a popular put down in my teens.

It was intended to provoke a fight. I usually fought.

[sniffa]

37. yeah, but not since high schooL

ironicaLLy though, i was caLLed the n-bomb more than the f-bomb.

[JackBeck]

41. For a while, Mr. JackBeck and I would get called fags on almost a weekly basis.

But the time it hurt the most, it wasn't said to my face, since I was jumped and knocked to the ground from behind by three teenagers. They called me a faggot as they kicked me, but not to my face, since I face face-down on the sidewalk.

[gollygee]

88. That's awful :(

:hug:

[Mark E. Smith]

42. Couple thousand times

I grew up in New Jersey.

[Balbus]

43. I'd doubt you'd find any boy that went to public school has hasn't been called a faggot.

[CurtEastPoint]

46. oh, yeah n/t

[WilliamPitt]

47. Dozens of times.

Not a good thing.

[rug]

49. I haven't been called that since they shut down the Yahoo discussion boards.

[flvegan]

51. Yup, and honestly

I didn't care. It's hateful, but I didn't let it bother me. Coming as an insult from the one that says it doesn't make it an insult to me, personally. It's in the intent. Okay, call me a gay man (by your idiot terminology). I'm not offended to be called a gay man. I don't care wtf you think of me and what triggered such a "manly" statement. However, you've shown that you're a shallow fucking idiot asshole bigot. Okay, I can deal with that.

To answer the question, I felt angry that a person would use a term like this to try to bring someone down. However, I wasn't upset at being on the receiving end of a hateful slur. How did I react? Blew them off. Not worth my time.

Regardless, anyone that uses the term in a hateful way, is nothing but a bigot. Fuck them.

[iamahaingttta]

53. When you live in San Francisco, it's inevitable...

...when you're young and have a great ass like I did then! I don't live there anymore, so it hasn't happened in a while.

One time, I was able to respond by saying "The 73, no... 74 women that I've slept with didn't seem to think I was a faggot, so I guess this is a clear case of 'it takes one to know one'!"

Luckily I was wearing my running shoes and had a better knowledge of the local terrain!

[AshevilleGuy]

54. No. And I am not heterosexual.

Maybe I am lucky. Or just look really 'straight'. :shrug:

[bullwinkle428]

55. Sure...plenty of times growing up, in high school

for the most part. Lacked self-confidence, and that didn't really help matters much, but it certainly gave me more of an appreciation of what gay people face every day.

[Fenris]

56. Probably.

I know I've been called "gay" before, which I found more puzzling than insulting, since I am not a homosexual.

[LSK]

57. yes

[dsc]

58. In middle school and early high school there were times I thought it was my name

I got called it so much. Honestly, it hurt more that I would like to admit.

[Bluebear]

59. Curious, since the OP has deserted this, what is the point of this question?

Is this some sociological survey?

Personally I am getting a little sick of seeing the word at DU every time I sign on.

[Zhade]

70. You KNOW the point of this.

To use the word "innocently".

[w13rd0]

60. Once, in the parking lot of a shopping mall...

...because I was wearing a bit of eyeliner and a pirate shirt. Then this group of "faggots" proceeded to beat the shit out of the bunch of snot-nosed hoosiers with our skateboards. I know, violence is never an answer, but it seemed the appropriate response at the time.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

61. "Queer" many many times when young.

When I was in junior high and high school, I got called a queer on a daily basis. That was before the word "Gay" was used.
This was the late sixties, early seventies.
The dialogue just about every day went like this:
Bully: "Queer!" Me: "Go to hell!"
Bully: "Queer!" Me: "Go to hell!"

Repeat ad nauseam. That was seven years of junior high and high school. That was the worst insult they could think of. I was small, chicken, wore glasses, was smart and female. And I'm straight!!

I also called one little witch "White trash" after she called me a "nigger lover" for doing a book report in English class on "My Life With Martin Luther King, Jr.", in 1969, whereupon she called me "Nigger Trash".

I happen to be so white that I can't get a suntan, I burn. Stupid idiot redneck!!

Randy Newman explains them in the song "Rednecks" better than I could. It's on YouTube if you haven't seen it.

[Behind the Aegis]

62. Yup.

Last week. It is bothersome, but unless they are coming at me, I try not to let it get to me.

[Malikshah]

65. Yes, during my 6th year anniversary with my partner in Key West

We'd just gotten out of our car in the back at the back of our B&B when a pick up truck shot by with 20 yr old rednecks who yelled Faggot at us.

Nothing like that to start one's anniversary trip. We had fun, but it's like having a distant relative die on your wedding day...

You can't get that day back and you can't look back on that day (or later anniversaries) without remembering the hateful comment.

[Warren DeMontague]

68. So sorry.

A little unasked for advice, IMHO the best revenge you could get on those nimrods would be to not let it color your anniversaries.

[Warren DeMontague]

67. Not since I was 12. Oh, wait. One weekend when I was in High School visiting SIU for a weekend

spending it getting drunk, as awol High School students at a college are wont to do... my buddies and I were walking somewhere on some dirt road, to find more liquor, undoubtedly, and some yahoos in a Bitchin' Camaro drove past, and one guy yelled out the window "Nice Jacket, Faggot! Whaddaya gonna do? Kick my Assssss....???" as he sped away, never giving us a chance to answer that question. I don't know if it was my jacket or not.

I think that was the last time. But afterwards, that was always our metaphor for faux-bravery- yelling some idiotic shit at someone out of a car window and then speeding away in terror. I'm sure those guys ended up being Republicans.

[donheld]

71. Only about 50,000 times

:grr:

[GreenZoneLT]

73. Oh, hell, yeah.

I'm naturally skinny, and in the early '80s I had a military haircut when short hair was otherwise pretty much a gay-only fashion. So, between being skinny and short-haired and living in Midtown Atlanta, I was an occasional target of carloads of redneck high school kids who like to come down there to gay-bash. I never actually got beat up, but I had beer thrown at me and some guys tried to get me to run from them once in a mall parking lot. According to all those dickheads, my name was "Hey, you skinny little faggot!"

My initial response was always, "Fuck you, asshole," but I generally got a bit more circumspect if they turned their car around. I did chase down the guys who threw the beer at me (I was on a bicycle, and the traffic lights worked out just right) and ask them what the fuck their problem was, but that was the adrenaline talking.

It pissed me off, naturally. It still pisses me off. Not being called faggot so much, just being threatened. Probably made me a bit more empathetic about gay-bashing.

I quit using "faggot" (except as a joke among very close friends) after a friend of mine who's gay talked about how much he hated that word.

[Brad Alan-Desjardins]

74. I was called "faggot" in high school a few times

It did bother me but looking back I shouldn't of cared cause it was said by people who don't know there asses from next tuesday.

Funny story when I was a little kid in the mid 90's and when I heard someone say that word I thought it was another word for fudge, true story.

[Oeditpus Rex]

75. Twice that I recall

One time, I was following a high school football team to their practice field to interview one of the players about which college he was going to. (He ended up going to Utah and playing four years in the NFL.) A ball got loose, and I picked it up and threw it back. Some punk yelled, "Nice throw for a faaa-giiiit!" From then on, whenever I covered that team, I hoped they'd lose.

(A bit later, I had another run-in involving that school when the boys basketball coach dressed me down when I went to interview him after a game for not showing sufficient respect to the flag before the game. Oy.)

A few years before that, I was hanging out in front of Jack-in-the-Box while cruising Main Street in my hometown, and a couple of bimbi decided I was gay for some reason. It was about 9 p.m. and my girlfriend was getting out of her night class, so I went over to the college to pick her up, with the intent of going back to Main Street, finding said bimbi and engaging in some PDA with my girlfriend. Didn't find 'em, though.

Looking back, that was a pretty immature reaction. But, hell, I was 17, maybe 18.

[gravity]

76. Many times growing up in high school.

Most of the time it was joking around and is about as hateful as the insult "your mom." It never really affected me since it was so common growing up that you really don't think about it being that bad. I had to make an effort to actually stop saying it, and I still don't intuitively associate 'faggot' with hate.

I believe it's the context and voice tone which makes the word so hateful.

[radfringe]

77. no but the knuckledragging neighbor frequently refers to us as

"fucking bull dykes" does that count?

[The_Warmth]

79. Relativity: Faggot

I put myself in the younger tier of those on DU, I graduated HS in '05. To most of the teens who dropped that "other F bomb" around school, I took as simple social indocrination. I figured: You can't get mad at these kids who've never really been taught a thing in there life. Now, I came from the largest HS in the Midwest, there were some serious hate-mongerers around, and boy did I like to put grease on their soap:

"You're such a fag, man!"

"What's your jive with a bundle o' sticks, man?"

"A bundle of sticks?"

"Yeah, that's the classical definition of faggot, unless you're trying to slander gays or something."

Ha, well I guess if all you have is fire, better to learn how to play with it.

[HughBeaumont]

80. Lots of times.

Everyone thought I was gay in junior high and high school. I'd get called worse shit just because. And everyone WONDERS why I don't want to go to my 20th year reunion. It'd be like a saloon fight.

[terrya]

81. Yes. Many times.

Particularly in high school. The knuckle dragging, mouth breathing jocks in particular loved that term.

I felt like complete shit each time. Worthless.

[Puglover]

82. Yup just once.

I have worked with a woman who is a total psycho for years. And full, FULL of rage. I have always thought there must be abuse in her background. This was around 12 years ago. Anyway, she got totally pissed off at me for some perceived injustice and in a room with about 150 people she stood up and screamed "YOU FUCKING FAGGOT!!!!!!!!!!!!" For once I was cool, I looked over at my boss and simply raised my eyebrow. My company has a no tolerance policy.

LOL she was halled into HR and given 3 days off to "think about further employment" and a permanent document was put into her file stating that one more offense would get her the boot.

Priceless.

[izzybeans]

83. I got called a faggot while walking to work.

My wife thought it was hilarious at first, but then stopped short and thought about some friends we know that have to walk the same street I do. Some brave "men" in a big pseudo-monster truck with plastic testicles dangling from it made themselves feel braver. It was like the Jethro version of Monty Python. "Faggot! Run Away! Run Away!" :clickity clack clickity clack:

Even though I'm not gay, without that experience I could not even relate, though I used to try.

[mikeytherat]

84. Just last year, by a woman who lives next door to my church.

Why? Because I spoke to her dog.

The dog, which was tied up in the alley of our church, was barking loudly, and I said, "Oh yeah. Look at that tail wagging - you are all bark and no bite my friend." The owner then came out and started yelling at me to leave her dog alone. When I asked her what she was talking about, she called me a "little faggot." I stood there perplexed, as I am 6'2" and 215 pounds, then I just burst out laughing. This really, REALLY got her angry. I walked away laughing my head off, and she was yelling at me to "get back here you little faggot," which, of course, only made me laugh even harder, which made her even angrier.

All in all a very surreal experience. In retrospect, I should have handled it differently, and sent my wife over to kick her ass.

mikey_the_rat

[Solly Mack]

87. Dyke

Angry and annoyed..not so much at the person as the ignorance of it all

Tol'em they were just jealous I got more than they did.