Huge resurgence in homophobic insults in schools – campaigner
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2y5zj0g0ko
Posted by Tartan_Samurai
Huge resurgence in homophobic insults in schools – campaigner
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2y5zj0g0ko
Posted by Tartan_Samurai
18 Comments
Schools: Don’t use these bad words
Kids: hold my beer
Did it ever go away? I left school in 2012 and it was so common back then, I can’t imagine it really disappeared in the 12 years since then
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It’s weird because kids are also becoming more open about it being or potentially being LGBTQ+ as well in schools (in my experience). I go to a lot of school functions to watch relatives perform in events and I’ve seen several students going by (without trying to be offensive) names that are the opposite gender of how they were born, and I was recently at a music performance where a student in the crowd was openly discussing the fact that he might be gay or bisexual with his friends.
And it’s supported at the school level. Their forms now include a ‘preferred name’ category as well as legal name whereas they didn’t before.
So they’re getting more visible, and getting more hate again? Everything seems to be becoming so charged and divided.
That being said, I remember ‘gay’ being used as an insult in a way that 99% of the time didn’t have anything to do with being gay or gay stereotypes. Weird how that happened.
If Mr Timbrell didn’t hear “that’s so gay” used in his 17 years as a teacher then he’s either deaf or a liar.
>“Mr Timbrell, who was a teacher for 17 years, said he did not recall hearing the phrase “that’s so gay” through his career.
I’m nearing 40, I used to say that shit back when I was in school, even out of school people would say it, was a common term
I work in a school. Homophobia is 20 x more common than any other hate language at present. Also not challenged the same way. We also have occasional incidents of racist hate language. To be fair, knowing how awful racial abuse is seems embedded. Kids look confused when they see homophobia and racism in the same category.
Also met a LOT of openly homophobic parents. Not many openly racist parents.
Recent culture war bollocks and how a lot of kids are parented by algorithms. Makes sense. Can see it.
Homophobia is still the poor relation to other hate. No idea why. Wait. I do. Because a lot of adults still hold these views and don’t have shame about it like racists do.
The one time where throwing insults about can have some leeway is in school. That’s where people get the urge to do naughty things out of their system and learn that it’s wrong to be insulting. Denying the kids an opportunity to make (relatively) harmless mistakes leaves them in a worse position when entering adulthood
Ya don’t say. It’s almost like that and the other bigotries never left.
Im not sure kids aged 7 really know the meaning of what they say, they just repeat what they hear.
Plenty of gay comments made when i was at school many years ago between kids, but its not got the same malice than adults saying it
Is this an imported cultural phenomenon, something that never left, the result of mass immigration from countries with strong anti-lgbt bias, or just kids being little schnitzels?
I should imagine this is solely because of all the culture war bollocks. The conservatives have so much to answer for.
Yeah, but tolerance for the choices of the individual is WOKE!
Everyone has to be exactly like me or they are WOKE!
Etc etc.
If schools want to prepare kids for work, treat it like work if you are caught being homophobic, racist, xenophobic, or transphobic, you’re gone. As that language is gross misconduct at work, and you’re sacked. it’s the parents responsibility to teach kids wrong from right, not the schools so they don’t have to put up with it, so kick the kids out and let the parents deal with it.
A lot of this is coming from online games like Roblox, Minecraft and the VR games kids play (Amoung Us, Gorilla tag etc).
Gorilla tag had a LGBTG update last year where they put the rainbow flag everywhere. Inevitably it became known as the ‘Gay Update”.
From my anecdotal observations (a 10 year old and an 8 year old) the insults are not given with any homophobic malice, its just another insult that isnt the “F”, “C” or “N” word so the kids throw it around like the words ‘idiot’, ‘moron’, ‘tory’ etc. Mine are told endlessly to stop using these words but Im not there all the time.
>Mr Timbrell, who was a teacher for 17 years, said he did not recall hearing the phrase “that’s so gay” through his career.
is he deaf?
As a gay man growing up in the 2000s, ‘gay’ was commonly used to mean ‘lame’ – not actually gay.
The more you push back, make up your own meaning, the more it’ll happen – so just stop with this Mr Timbrell.
Is it really homophobic insults. When I was in grammar school gay was used on a daily basis. Everything was gay but there was no hate behind it. We were fucking 12-16. It has nothing to do with actual gay people it was just the phrase used.