Just saw an RA bulletin board that had two lists of words one said good words one said bad. Under the good list there were terms such as deplorable and other negative adjectives. Under the bad word list they had words like gay and dyke. While I understand the RA meant well, and probably meant that you should expand your vocabulary to avoid pejorative terms, but I think a bigger point needs to be made. GAY is not a bad word. It should not be used pejoratively but it is an identifying term such as being black, Asian, Jewish, Christian etc! To keep teaching that gay and terms like it are bad words only will continue to stigmatize it. If we teach people dont say this word or that cuz they are bad we are on some level saying that it is in fact only a pejorative term that should be shameful. REHS should really step up their game.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 17:42:10 +0000