Jordan
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Circumstances force me to address the recent incidents in Philadelphia involving people using the word "faggot", from football players to parking enforcement to Wal-Mart workers. These are grave breaches of the peace and while I believe that all 3 of those culpable should be fired, we must consider that....Queerphobia is a many headed beast, and if we cut off the head that screams "faggot"...there will still be a queerphobic beast.
Many people in the queer community get discriminated against for many reasons. From marriage equality to being forced to use the wrong toilet, to even one recent incident where they would not change the marker on my welfare records. Was the word faggot used? No, but it still was damaging as if they had unleashed a slurry of homophobic or transphobic language. However, as impactful as institutionalized discrimination is, it just does not get as impassioned a response as a low-level person screaming a certain word.
I refer you to the case of Tyler Clementi. We will never know if Dharun Ravi used the f word, but the fact is, he didn't need to use the F word to do great damage, driving young Tyler to jump off a bridge in despair. Now, many of these bullycides do involve the F word, and I do not want to minimize the F word's impact on a young, insecure person, but we do not do justice to the victims of queerphobia if we choose to erase incidents in which LGBTIQ people have their civil rights abrogated without the usage of slurs. It may not seem as powerful, but "you can't change the gender marker on your records" is just as damaging as the F word.
Let us call out all incidents of queerphobia, not only those that are so blatant that they deserve a mention in the newspaper.
-Jordan Gwendolyn Davis
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