The british use of Gay: (Instead of doing Maths hw, I'm writing this blogpost)

18 Sep, 2024

It's 3:23 am, what am I doing?

Gay

As a british schoolboy who sometimes visits the playground (I spent much of my adolescence in the library or at home), I've noticed the word gay thrown around quite a bit, sometimes by people I know and sometimes people I don't know and me at times.
At first, I naively believed that when someone said "ha, that's gay" they were talking about a 3rd "unofficial" definition of gay.
Like how bat (for baseball) and bat (the animal) are spelt the same, sound the same but have different meanings. I later realized that my original observation was incorrect.
I try to give someone the benefit of the doubt when they "ha, that's gay" or some variation on that because at the time of writing I try not to see it as a big deal or make a fuss about it.

Identity

When I was confused about my identity I never paid much mind to the Church's issues with the engagement in "homosexual behaviours"¹.
I remember the question being asked in R.E about the Church's stance on same sex couples being along the lines of "Homosexual thoughts or "tendencies" are ok but acting on them isn't".

Confusion

For 1 of these reasons, after coming out I sorta skirted around the topic of sexuality if it ever came up in conversation.

1. It saves time and energy to say "I'm straight" as people might just go "ok" and move on
2. I was scared that maybe I was lying to myself and that I was actually just straight and "looking for attention"
3. At a gathering for my friends family, me, him (we were like 14/15) and his cousins (they older than that) were talking and someone brought up the topic of sexuality and I was asked mine and I answered truthfully. This resulted in more interest as compared to my friends answer of him being straight. I don't think he'll ever forgive me for speaking the truth /s.

After the Confusion

After I figured myself out I also by proxy began to be more observant of how others around me perceived the whole LGBT thing. While I don't think flags and your sexual identity should become the vocal point of how you present to others, I still believe that

1. The colours of the flags are pretty
2. It's up to you so do whatever you want
3. It's still a pretty big part of your identity and how you are perceived by others From my beliefs I don't I think that it is weird to mod a game so that a character you "main" has the colours of a flag that represents a part of you.
   Therefore when I saw this mod of Bi Pride Ryu, I thought nothing of it.
   
   My friend on the other hand exclaimed something along of the lines of: "ugh"
   At the time I internally thought "what the sigma" (translated: what the hell). This interaction was eye opening as before I wouldn't have noticed it as clearly [^2] if not for my change in attitude (not sure if that's the right word).

The point of this blogpost (other than to distract myself from maths hw) is that I'm not sure how I should react when people use the word gay in a negative connotation or react negatively. I'm not so sure that I should react so apathetically anymore.

[^2): Might have been an example of the "The Baader–Meinhof Phenomenon"