mrveitch

*The following is actually quite old, written around winter of 2013. 

“Why do you keep picking out faggot clothes?”

Taken aback, but quick to reply, I smugly said “well I spent so much time in the closet, what do you think I was doing? I was learning”.

1)Make sarcastic remark. 
2)Big cheesy smile. 
3)Move on and pretend nothing is wrong. The typical Lee response. (I realize now that this is typical of marginalized groups in general. If we respond with anything else, we quickly become the aggressor. “Gosh, I was just joking”. “Don’t be so sensitive”. How about you don’t be an asshole?)

Now for context.She is a friend’s friend. We were escaping the cold in Uniqlo where I picked up a maroon coloured duffle coat  that provoked this response. In less than 10 words, this near stranger reduced my newfound passion in menswear into a scathing, backwards and hateful critique of my taste, and by extension, who I am as a person, and went on to try impress upon me what it means to be a man.

I was prepared to get over it. I figured it was a silly remark made in jest by someone with a limited vocabulary. I am not gay and if I were, that shouldn’t inspire ridicule and hate.

Unfortunately, whether or not she realized it, with those 8 words, she launched a direct assault on my manhood that shaped our interactions for the rest of the evening. To her credit though, she kept apologizing for “hurting my feelings”. Of course if she really was sorry, the simplest fix would have been to stop saying hurtful things, but hey, baby steps, right?

She began constantly comparing me to her boyfriend, one of the other men in the group, who she had proudly dressed herself. I had not paid any attention to what he wore. He dressed like a typical college student; graphic t-shirt, pants sagging, and an “IDGAF what you think” attitude that shone through the clothes his girlfriend picked for him. And you know what? For him, it worked. I don’t need others to conform to my standard of dress or appearance. It is not my place to judge others in that way. I got to know him over the course of a day and I liked him despite our different view on personal presentation. What would telling him I didn’t like how he dressed accomplish? It didn’t make me like him any less.

This made me think though. Is it really that strange that a straight man should dare to wear something with a bit of colour ? Should men really be “restricted to buttons and zippers” like she said? Does being a man mean not caring about appearance at all?

Now for that word… That awful, hateful word. Faggot. I used to use it quite freely myself, but was once called out on it and realized just how stupid I was. Like the word “nigger”, somewhere in our misguided ignorance, we began using and abusing “faggot”, claiming that in this way, the word would lose its power. The problem with this tactic is that it does not erase the history of the word. When I hear others proudly I hear “nigger” “nigga” and all it’s derivations, I am reminded of my ancestors who were called niggers until they believed they were. Who were killed and would die over the word. I have almost come to blows over that word myself. “Faggot” is no different. Today, one of the most demeaning things you can call a man is a “faggot”. Like a “nigger”, a “faggot” is less than a man and thus undeserving of the privileges that a man may enjoy. A “man” can abandon his family and beat women, but hold onto his “manliness” as long as he isn’t attracted to men. So we’ll have NPH who surely isn’t a man, despite the fact his home life appears to embody everything that a man and his family should be. Picture perfect, minus the whole being gay and all.

Throughout this giant wall of text I have used the words “faggot” and “nigger” freely to demonstrate a point, but I feel the need to remind you that these and other derogatory words in the same vain should never be used to address a fellow human being. They serve one purpose and that is to inflict pain. Expand your vocabulary a bit. Next time you want to tell me I dress like a “fag”, try saying “I think you look quite dapper today” or “wow, Lee, you have great taste”. See? That sounds so much better. Or hell, don’t say anything. I’m not dressing for you and I’m certainly not dressing to conform to some narrow minded, outdated standard of what a “man” should look like or be.