Homophobia, or homophobic language, can do incredible damage to the wellbeing of our community. The point is that language is living and breathing, and we don’t fully understand its effect on our internal circuitry. For example, names such as “Brad/Courtney” were correlated more regularly with words like “happy/sunrise” while “Leroy/Latisha” were more likely found with “hatred/vomit”. Research published in Science (2017) found pretty grim racial and gender biases within the machine learning algorithms.
#If gay means happy then im not gay meme full
The advent of artificial intelligence has been heralded as a champion for objectivity: finally, a system that is free from the human condition, able to respond fairly, justly, with full rationality.īut what many don’t seem to understand is that when AI learns from humans it becomes a sponge to all the mould trapped in the spores of our language. The power of language isn’t so explicitly obvious either. Words have power, and those powers carry different weights across time.īecause its damage isn’t always so obvious It’s our greatest prison, in that we’re only able to imagine ourselves and our surroundings through the words that we know, but it’s also our greatest source of liberation. Remember: piles of sticks are easier to kick.īecause the truth is that we use language as a handle in understanding and navigating the world around us. This dehumanisation is a favourable trick for any oppressor: making it much simpler to say awful things, carry out violent acts, without those typical human feelings of guilt or empathy. Coated in shame and isolation, they’re used to make us feel dread about our sexuality and to not only emasculate us but dehumanise, also.
In 2008 Hilary Duff released an accidentally hilarious PSA about why “you shouldn’t say something’s gay when you mean it’s bad… it’s insulting.” A win for gay rights!īut in all sincerity these words do stick with us. Whether it’s a placard scrawled with “God hates Fags,” or a hushed “faggot” pointed down a school corridor, it’s a term that most gay men have encountered in their lifetime. The Oxford English Dictionary cites that the earliest written use of the word faggot appeared in a book of American slang as a slur for gay men: “All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.” Sounds like a good time, even if the authors didn’t intend it so.Īll marginalised and oppressed groups have had words weaponised against them throughout history. This is directly in line with how tightly wound together misogyny and homophobia/femmephobia are in our modern understandings of oppression - where it’s typically the derision of women that people fashion onto seemingly effeminate men. This year I learned that faggot is also a type of offal meatball best served with peas and mash.īut most interesting is that in the late 16th century the word faggot was reserved as a derogatory and abusive word for women - namely older women. In Yiddish, the word faygele means little bird, which I guess is pretty cute but also maybe not very relevant.Īpparently in ye olde British private schools fagging was the practice where younger boys performed special “duties” for older boys. But that’s just a hot - and unsubstantiated - urban legend. I once read some Tumblr post that claimed the bundle of sticks were for burning because of gay death penalties or maybe something to do with witchcraft.
The standout theory mandates faggot as a “bundle of sticks” derived from the Latin, fascis. Much like who can and can’t say it, the etymology (the root) of faggot is also very contentious. Here’s why people shouldn’t throw around the word ‘faggot’.