I grew up with an older brother who would call things gay in a derogatory way back when we were teenagers and i also picked up the habit even though I had never met a gay person and have never had (and still dont have) any hate for them or anyone regardless of sexual preference or gender identity
I still call things gay tho to this day, usually when something kinda annoying happens (e.g. that was kinda gay when the teacher made us do extra homework)
I’m sure there are people who might feel hurt about that so i filter myself when meeting new people and i generally use it less these days but it happens sometimes
Anyone else relate to this?
Yeah, I grew up in the late 2000s, so I had that kind of casually homophobic slang pretty ingrained in me. Will never forget, though, the first time I heard a gay friend call someone else the f-slur on DOTA 2, lmao.
I don’t think it’s necessarily reflective of personal homophobia, but that we grew up in a time when homophobia was normalized. As I became more socially conscious and graduated from high school, I’ve made an effort to erase it from my vocabulary.