Misidentified Pathogens

S***. What a way to start an article.

What we’ve been hearing all throughout childhood is: cursing bad. Therefore, cursing no no. And to be honest, who among us really listened? Curse words float all around me in school, and, admittedly, I have used a few myself. What we don’t always realize is that curse words come from somewhere, and often hold meaning we don’t think about when we use them. The S word refers to fecal matter. The F word refers to the act of sexual intercourse. The N word is a derogatory racialized derogatory term rooted in slavery. And, gay has become the substitute for a whole bunch of meanings aside from homosexuality in the way I’ve heard it being used in KISJ and around the world.

Frankly, it’s dehumanizing. It is reducing a plethora of unique individuals and a complex community into a word. A loaded one with a metric ton of all of society’s negative stereotypes and stigmas attached to it. “Gay” ceases to be a characteristic of a person; it becomes an all encompassing word that reinforces your mental image of “gay” completely separate from what gay people are actually like. When you substitute the word “gay” for stupid, bad, the butt of a joke, you are creating an association between “gay” and many other negatives. It may be funny for you, sure. But I will also bet my horde of paper cranes that you’re straight.

When you call someone a piece of “[enter S word],” fecal matter doesn’t care. It doesn’t have a conscience, and cannot give a damn whether or not you associate all sorts of negatives with it. When you call someone “gay” instead of stupid, for you, gay is stupid. Gay is idiotic, undesirable, bad. Oh, but you don’t really mean all gay people are bad. “Gay” is a word you use because it’s funny, and you would never mean any actual harm towards gay people, so why would anyone think that? However, it is undeniable that a social climate of hostility towards gay people, or anyone divergent from a set standard, actually, is created. But… as long as you aren’t gay, what do you care?

Often, we are blinded to the privileges we possess, and therefore towards the lack thereof other marginalized communities are used to. Things like education, housing, food, water, and healthcare to cite a few. Of course, this much is what we already know and recite on a regular basis on pretty much every assessment in KIS. However, the moment when our eyes genuinely open to a privilege we’ve thought of as granted is, ironically, when it is taken away. It’s like when you pierce your ears, and suddenly you realize all the ways your ears could touch things in your everyday routine. Taking your clothes off? Ouch, your shirt catches on your earrings. Your glasses, hair, pillow, arm, everything else: ouch. I have never been more aware of my ears than the initial weeks after piercing them. I could not have fathomed to be aware of my ears in the first place, and I will bet, anyone whose ears are untouched wouldn’t fully understand my analogy. And voilà! Privilege is not knowing something you have is actually not universally shared among all people; it is your credit card being rejected by a vendor who only accepts cash, it is your casual offer to go grab a bite at a fancy cafe being denied because your friend doesn’t want to burn through their savings.

We, and when I say we, I mean cisgender, heterosexual, most likely ethnic Koreans attending KISJ, have the privilege of not having to care about such issues. Gay marriage rights, legal identities, gender affirming healthcare and such are a long cry from what we’ll ever have to experience firsthand. On a more relatable level, the constant stream of insults, misinformation, and hostility is something you don’t have to experience. The vast majority of us will never hear stories told from the other perspective, all the visceral emotions attached to them.

But I will also dare you. Go on Twitter, reddit, or even conduct a google search to look up what kinds of comments openly trans people have been receiving online, especially due to the current culture war. Listen to what politicians had to say about gay people during the Aids epidemic. After that, tell me, if any human being deserves words such as those being directed towards them, by complete strangers that decide who they are because they are a [ ].

In the end, social microaggressions are a steady, drizzling rain, paving the way for the normalization of more overt forms of discrimination. What I wanted to say was please: when you want to use the word “gay” for fun, don’t. You wouldn’t want to be in the social climate actual gay people would experience around you and your friends.

The social environment in KISJ, especially the class of 2027, which I am acutely aware because I’m a part of, is a cozy blanket that shields and protects anyone who’s fortunate enough to be included within it. Not everyone is included within it, and that ostracization makes life relentlessly difficult.. And in normalizing the use of words such as “gay” as a punchline, we are essentially creating another boundary that completely isolates and excludes gay people from ever being inside of our blanket. I am not asking you to devote your entire life into being a gay activist. I am asking each of us to stop contributing to the hostile environment that hints at stigmas and stereotypes rooted much deeper. I am asking each of us to stop using misogyny and fatness as a joke. Because most of the slang words that are widely used don’t refer to inanimate, non-human related things like digestive waste material.

And, if you have the time for it, look up “Peggy McIntosh” and her Invisible Knapsack as a starting point. We all probably have a lot to learn from it.