Yet Cassidy brought up a question that no one answered, and that did pertain to the post, so if I may?

I, too, and a teacher, and deal often with teens who use the words “gay” and “fag” or “faggot” as insults (my dictionary has red-lined faggot–?)

My response (which I learned from a dear, queer friend) has become, “What do you mean when you say that?”

Because gentle is often the best way to deal with teenage egos, I wait for them to admit that they use gay and similar words to mean stupid, boring, etc. THEN I ask them why being gay would equate with those unfavorable adjectives.

Of course, sometimes they mean to suggest that their target is, in fact, homosexual, and that this is the insult. Then I’m not so gentle when I insist that their efforts to insult someone by insinuating that the person is of a particular sexual orientation is akin to efforts to insult someone by referring to their cultural or religious background.

Sadly, they’re still young, and sometimes all they learn is that they’d better not use those terms in a derogatory way around me, because I’ll call them on it. But it’s a start.

Actually, I have much hope for this upcoming generation when it comes to acceptance and embrace of GBLTQ individuals and culture. I think they might really make a difference.

Of course, Oxford University Press is no fucking help.

A couple thoughts from the peanut gallery:

1. RE: dealing with “asshats”

I respect Twisty’s pithy one liners that usually take care of trolls and other vermin. Clearly not everyone who comes here and disagrees is a “troll”–some of them are just clueless dudes that might actually be reachable.

I have read several comments by men here and on other blogs where they talk about how they didn’t Get It, until enough interactions with women online (sometimes adversarial, sometimes not)started to open up their eyes. I totally agree that it’s not our job to coddle them and nurse them along. Indeed, the Blaming experience can be harsh, but bracing, and just what one needs to get a jolt, like a riding crop on a horse’s ass. Gets you moving.

That said, on the grand color wheel of asshats, these two jokers barely rated a beige. I think it’s important to know your enemy, I also think it’s important to know when your enemy is driving a tank and when he rides up on a Shetland pony; it helps to vary battle tactics is all I’m saying.

RE: ignoring them:

Why ignore when you can have a civil conversation, or a lively debate that might get all of us thinking. Yes, the regular posters, too–we all have a lot to learn about everyone else we share the world with and I include myself in that number.

2. Re: Mikey’s rewriting of the Civil Rights Era

Buried within his cluelessly privileged diatribe was a tiny sliver of truth–Women can use all the allies we can get. And how much easier would this whole revolution thing be if we could get some men to understand our POV by reason and enlightenment rather than by taking up arms to fight them all?

Yes, African-Americans had to rally themselves and their communities, get past generations of internalized racism, fight, bleed and die to get civil rights. They did the heavy lifting.

And they were trying to convince those with the power, the whites, to allow them to come forward and understand that civil rights were universal. Whites weren’t the principle movers of the civil rights movement, but they did have to be convinced that it was the right thing to do. That convincing was the heart of all the efforts by the blacks to achieve equality. I have long thought that the term Civil Rights Movement was a wonderful title because who can be against civil rights unless they are an asshole?

3. RE the use of the term “cisgender”, please note the following post by Uppity Biscuit:

Do not call me cisgender. You are demeaning me with your word.

The fact that you presume to re-name me shows that I am indeed not your oppressor. You presume to re-name women because in fact women are NOT your oppressor, and even you know as much.

I guess I just get frustrated that there doesn’t seem to be a clean enough way to expose the inherent hypocrisy in this kind of blanket hate speech. So far I haven’t seen anyone come up with a good way of taking that kind of power away. Obviously throwing around more slurs is not going to help, and everyone seems incapable of ignoring her. If only we could take the debate we have here to a broader spectrum…

Coulter is the most effective gender-baiting tool the right ever invented, and liberal dudes are snapping it up and becoming herrings getting shot in a barrel.

I’m very, very sorry.