The phrase “that’s so gay” has tradnally been unrstood as homophobic. Stonewall’s School Report argued this posn, and will be discsed their upg Edutn Conference. Stonewall argu…
Contents:
- "THAT'S SO GAY" IS JT SO WRONG
- A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE
- THAT'S SO GAY
- THE 50 BT GAY SONGS TO CELEBRATE PRI ALL YEAR LONG
- WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A GAY LTLE PERSON
- HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
"THAT'S SO GAY" IS JT SO WRONG
Pri serv more than a month. The gay songs – om dis hs to club classics – are perfect for Pri year-round. * that's a little too gay *
Spend any time around teens, and you’re likely to hear the mon exprsn, “That’s so gay" — even among gay kids.
If you ask them about , as some rearchers have, they often will sist that is not tend as homophobic language, jt a harmls phrase to exprs tratn or somethg siar. Studi reveal that 30 percent of gay adolcents stggle wh suicidal thoughts.
A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE
* that's a little too gay *
“That’s so gay” is always pejorative, always harmful, and always homophobic.
Thk about this: For thoands of years, religns have lled homosexualy an abomatn.
People still get murred if someone thks they are gay, and not jt other untri.
THAT'S SO GAY
Gay Equals Sex. When most people hear the term LGBT (lbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual), for stance, they equate to havg adult sex.
Another client’s mother once ught him lookg at gay porn, and said, horrified, “You’re not gay, are you? ” Later when the parents learned their children were gay, they apologized to them for sayg the thgs, but the damage was already done.
I heard you say whout knowg I was gay. Hearg kids sayg, “that’s so gay” every day mak the people and everythg else around them qutnable: Are thgs safe or dangero? What, then, n be done about makg kids (and the rt of ) more aware of the harm g such phras as “That’s so gay?
THE 50 BT GAY SONGS TO CELEBRATE PRI ALL YEAR LONG
But parents who are enough aware of language’s substrata n help by helpg their kids’ schools unrstand the value of practicg the same kd of zero tolerance for homophobic language that they do for racist or anti-Semic or bullyg language. The bt thg I have seen is the mpaign “ThkB4YouSpeak” by GLSEN (Gay, Lbian School Edutor Network).
WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A GAY LTLE PERSON
Anti-LGBT remarks such as “that’s so gay” are often untentnal and a mon part of teens’ vernacular.
Hanya Yanagihara’s novel is an astonishg and amb chronicle of queer life a 2013 say for Salon, the culture wrer Daniel D’Addar lamented the absence of a big, amb novel about gay life Ameri today. ” D’Addar surveyed a number of proment gay wrers about his this, and the next day Tyler Coat summarized their views for Flavorwire a piece tled “The Great Gay Novel is Never Gog to Happen. ” But no verage of the book I’ve seen has discsed as a novel fundamentally about gay liv—as the most amb chronicle of the social and emotnal liv of gay men to have emerged for many book follows a group of four men—Ju, Willem, JB, and Mallm—over three s of iendship, om their years as llege roommat to the heights of profsnal succs.
Of the novel’s ma characters, only JB unambiguoly embodi an immediately regnizable and unambivalent gay inty.
HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
”The plexy of the characters’ relatnships to sexual inty is one way Yanagihara elevat them om mere “wdow drsg, ” and I spect ’s one reason A Ltle Life hasn’t been regnized as a book fundamentally about gay male experience. Another is that rears have e to expect such books to be wrten by gay men and to be at least plsibly nfsnal. From Edmund Whe’s A Boy’s Own Story (1982) to Jt Torr’ We the Animals (2011), novels about gay men and their liv have often been more or ls easily mappable onto the thor’s bgraphy.
In says and terviews, Yanagihara has spoken of her sire stead to wre across difference, explorg what she se as specifilly male iendships and emotnal as Yanagihara’s characters challenge nventnal tegori of gay inty, so A Ltle Life avoids the faiar narrativ of gay fictn. Yanagihara approach the llective trmas that have so eply shaped morn gay inty—sickns and discrimatn—obliquely, avoidg the nventns of the g-out narrative or the AIDS novel.
” In s sometim gelg scriptns of Ju’s self-harm and his perceptns of his own body, the book remds rears of the long filiatn between gay art and the eakish, the abnormal, the extreme—those aspects of queer culture we’ve been enuraged to fet an era that’s creasgly embracg gay marriage and is not a register of feelg or exprsn rears are acctomed to Amerin lerary fictn. In this astonishg novel, Yanagihara achiev what great gay art om Prot to Almodóvar has so often sought: a granur of feelg aquate to “the terrifyg largens, the impossibily of the world. I do not believe "Everyone is a ltle b gay" is te any meangful sense.