That's so incredibly gay!

"Dude, I just failed my biology final because my professor hates me."

"Yeah man?!?  That's so gay!"

I know that you don't mean any harm towards the LGBT community or me personally when you say "that's so gay," but you have to understand that it is still hurtful in an indirect way.

Before I came out, every time, and I mean *every* time I heard someone use gay in the sense to mean stupid, all I could think of is how afraid I was to come out.  I am pretty sure that most people who say "that's so gay" are not homophobic people who hate gays and lesbians, but looking back, all I could ever think of was all of the struggles I had to deal with in my life for being gay.

I did not choose to be gay, but that is something to save and discuss at another time.  Every time I heard "that's so gay" before I came out, my world would stop, and whatever task I was doing, whether completing school work, chatting with friends, or even just eating lunch, would suddenly become irrelevant, for all the only thing on my mind was the overwhelming situation that I was dealing with in my life.

Hearing "that's so gay" didn't offend me, nor does it to this day, but what it did do was remind me of being gay, something that I was trying to put off to the side until I could fully accept it.  Hearing someone say "that's so gay" wasn't scary, it was the thought of being gay that scared me.  Looking back from today, my reasoning was borderline irrational, but it is needless to say that the constant hearing of the word "gay" made me reflect more upon my sexuality in a time when I wanted to ignore it.

That is not to say that talking about LGBT issues is a no-can-do for fear of upsetting someone who isn't straight, but it just has to be done in a relevant, caring way.  Not in a negative sense, like relating gay or stupid.

After having come out, I don't take "that's so gay" seriously.  I am now able to fully accept that it is just an expression, but the phrase's negative implication of homosexuality sometimes reminds me of how I felt as a young teen struggling to discover my sexuality.  It's kind of like a flash back, but not in the extreme sense.  It's just not a fun thing to hear because it reminds me, and many others I'm sure, of a rough time during the teenage years.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is...

If something is stupid, then it's stupid.  It's not gay.  I don't care if you want to use gay as a synonym for stupid, because I know that gay people are not comparable to the term stupid.  It's the psychological stuff that you are inadvertently doing (there is probably a word for it that I can't think of.)  You basically are making life difficult for those who are scared enough trying to be accepted.

But I'm sure you don't mean to.  I know that many of my friends who still say "that's so gay" are great people who accept the LGBT community.  But I guess it's one of those things where you just have to be careful because, regardless of your intentions, words CAN hurt.

Thank you!  I'd love to hear your opinion, even if it's not the same as mine!  Comments please!