Homo?!*#

Today we are sitting down and coming up with different names for the discussion group. I just typed the word “homo” into my thesaurus and here were the terms:

cave dweller, cave man, homo sapien, HUMAN and cavewoman. It’s funny to me how people take words like Homo and turn it into something negative when all it really means is HUMAN.

I am at the point in my life where if someone does call me a dyke, a fag, or homo, I really don’t get offended at all. I just laugh and say something smartass back to them and let them know they really aren’t insulting me. They are taking terms I use to describe myself and attempting to put a negative spin on it which is ignorant on their end.

When I worked at the bookstore I would always hear teenage/college boys say: Don’t be so gay!  If they say it a couple times I would tell them to stop and ask if they even know what the word “gay” really means.  One kid got angry and told his friend I had a rainbow coat on to show people how gay I was.  I over heard him again and went over and asked him if he was color blind and that my coat only had orange, green and blue on it.  He wasn’t amused again and looked embarrassed.

I’m glad that it seems like more queer people have taken back a lot of these terms and put a positive spin on them so they are not so hurtful.  There are still hate crimes and people still get called names but we are making some progress compared to a few years back.