The other day I was walking to work in the middle of New York City, while belting a song from “Titanic: the Musical” at the top of my lungs, with my pink hair on full display and a man pulled up to the curb where I was waiting to cross, lowered his window, looked directly at me and said “faggot” with as much hatred and malice as he could muster, then he rolled his windows up and drove away with his family in their Suburban and left me alone on that corner with a group of onlookers staring at me, waiting to see what I would do. I crossed the street, and kept singing.
I have always believed that words don’t hold power, but rather it is the intention behind the word that holds the power. For example I use the word fuck almost as often as I use the word the, but I almost never mean it in a negative way… ever. So really that man could have screamed any word at all and with his intention to hurt me, it probably would have stung a bit. But it did get me thinking, why do people use this word in particular? Why am I constantly seeing it in the comments on my social media platforms? CONSTANTLY! Why has it become synonymous with something bad? Like the word gay is often used VERY INCORRECTLY by people to indicate something bad… Gay literally means happy people, get your heads out of your ass. So I took out my dictionary again:
fag·got
ˈfaɡət/
noun
noun: faggot; plural noun: faggots; noun: fagot; plural noun: fagots
NORTH AMERICAN informal offensive a male homosexual.
a bundle of sticks or twigs bound together as fuel.
a bundle of iron rods bound together for reheating, welding, and hammering into bars.
Still bewildered I dug further into its origin… according to Merriam-Webster it was first used in 1914 as a contemptuous word for a woman or child.
Ok so gay men act like mean women or children. That’s what I can come up with from all of this. Thanks… BULLSHIT!
But something interesting happened when I kept digging and looked up the word fag and the first definition that came up was from the 1700s…
Definition of fag
intransitive verb
: to work hard : toil
transitive verb
: to tire by strenuous activity : exhaust fagged by the strenuous climb
Well things are looking up I must say! I’m a hard worker, I certainly do strenuous activity… I like this word.
2 fag
noun
Definition of fag
chiefly British : toil, drudgery it is such a fag; I came back tired to death — Jane Austen Ok so I see here how to work hard has been given a negative spin but the hard work part is still sticking so we're still good.
3 fag
noun
Definition of fag
: an English public-school boy who acts as servant to an older schoolmate
Um… WTF?
4 fag
verb
intransitive verb
: to serve as a fag (see 3 fag) especially in an English public school fagging for older boys during his first year
Again… WHAT?
5 fag
noun
Definition of fag
: cigarette
This one I learned on Celerity Big Brother when surrounded by smoking Brits. So fine.
And FINALLY, in 1920 we arrive at this:
6 fag
noun
Definition of fag
offensive
—used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a male homosexual
I mean, did I miss something? How did we get to this definition? It started as working hard, then working tediously, then being a public-school kid, then a CIGARETTE, and now an insulting term to call gay men? Who decided this? I want names…
Well, here and now I am redefining it. I am defining fag the same way google does, a gay male. That’s it.
So you want to CALL me a fag or a faggot, I will say, thank you, why YES I AM, and keep singing and strut across that street BELTING “Titanic” with all my heart and soul, because I will no longer allow that word to have power over me. I am taking it back for the good of all gaykind. Because “sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me” is f-ing bullshit. Words can hurt you. But not made up words that make no sense. Literally someone a hundred years ago decided it was something mean to call a homosexual man, and we reacted to it! It got a rise out of us! So it stuck, and kept on hurting us. Well, from this point on it will no longer get a rise out of me, because we are in troubled times people, and the less ammunition we give the other side, the better we will be in this battle. So call me a fag, do it, I will just go on singing and say thank you. Because if being a fag means being a hard working gay man then you are completely correct. I am a PROUD gay man who works tirelessly so that other gay men and boys can feel safe in their own skin, and if that makes me a proud fag, well then I just took away your ability to hurt me with that word, didn’t I?
God that feels good.