Your first FAGGOT

    Saeed Jones, in his book How We Fight for Our Lives, states "You never forget your first faggot."  

    I couldn't agree more.  But then again, you don't forget the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth...

    I'm 36 today.  I've been called a faggot for twenty years now.   Less often these days in person, but online it continues.

    It's not always thrown at me in English.  Last week it was mostly in Arabic due to this post on Instagram.  I now know the Arabic word for faggot now: لوطي (luti, from "the people of Lot"). 

    And I know it in French, obviously: pédé (from pederast, nice...)  It has been hollered at me on the bus here in Switzerland and on the streets of Paris.  Behind my back, naturally.  Always behind my back.

    I know it in Dutch, as even on the libertine streets of Amsterdam I was called a flikker.  Behind my back, of course.  Always behind my back. 

    Do I have a nice ass or something? (The answer is, "Yes.")

    I'm not going to bore you to death with all the different languages I've had the privilege of learning thanks to the word faggot. 

    But, when I reflect on the fact that there really ISN'T a word for faggot in Japanese, I long to return to the lands where I could walk the streets and maybe be an outsider because I was a foreigner, and, yes, I admit it, flamboyant.  12 years in East Asia was a respite from homophobia.

    I'm 36 today.  People say, "it gets better."  But that's bullshit and we all know it.  IT doesn't get better.

    One thing can get better, and that's me (and you).  Yes, I am angry... but not bitter.  I'm tougher.  I hope I don't get rock hard, but I will throw stones if I have to.

    My birthday resolution is to TAKE NO SHIT FROM ANYONE.  Bully me? You're OUT!  Waste my time? Be GONE!  Bullshit much? BYE Felicia...

    Happy birthday to me, and yes... Let me change the meaning of the phrase "first faggot."  Let me be your First Faggot.  Your Number One Faggot.  The Best Faggot.

    After all, I am not a faggot, I am THE FAGGOT. 

 

ADDENDUM:  After posting this, I realized that I hadn't even written about my "first faggot."  I can remember it clearly, so put yourself in 2002.  I used to go to Arcadia High School, a terrible place to be queer.  I can clearly remember being called a faggot as I walked down the halls, dressed, as it was my prerogative to do, in half-drag.  "Hey faggot" was yelled at me, from behind, as usual.  That evening, I was also privy to a wonderful blog post threatening to beat me up if I ever dressed in drag again because it was "so disgusting."  The school, of course, did nothing when I reported this to the deans.  They intimated that I had to come out to my parents if I wanted to file a police report.  The blog post stayed up for years, until the author, who did eventually apologize, took it down when I reminded him it was still up.  Oh, Albert (If you went to AHS, it's easy to guess since his last name has two letters).  I completely forgive Albert as he really did apologize afterwards, even if it was YEARS later.  There were many more threats, even a death threat delivered by hand to my mailbox at home, which, fortunately (?), I found before my parents did.  It would have freaked them out.  The threat was worded in a manner that suggested that "after graduation" the cunning perps could get away with offing me because they would already have their diplomas (brilliant plan there, guys).  There were also, thankfully mild, acts of physical violence involving a belt... I don't want to get into it.  Probably the worst incident in high school was having coffee thrown at me on the streets of Pasadena from a moving car while I was on my way to an interview for a part-time job, effectively making that interview impossible.  The car had a license plate frame from Arcadia High School, but I never got to see who the driver was, a teacher (?), probably...
    UCLA (name dropped, ooops) was not much better, but at least the faggots were mostly transformed into "aw hell naws" from students who couldn't believe what I was wearing.  No violence, even though I walked the streets of LA, at night, in real furs and crop tops...
    Japan, like I said, offered a respite from all this, but things picked up again when I went back to Europe.

ADDENDUM 2: I should have, and didn't, mention the people who were kind to me, which was the overwhelming majority of people. And there were the few that were so kind to me that they became close friends. I won't name names, but one event sticks in my mind. During a club event for which we had to spend several nights in a hotel, the boy who was assigned to sleep in the same bed as I refused to do so on the grounds that he wasn't comfortable sleeping with a gay boy. He said he preferred to sleep on the floor rather than sleep next to me.  Well, a boy who was completely comfortable with his straight sexuality said he would like to spend the nights next to me. He wasn't afraid he would catch the gay or get molested I guess.  Up until that point, I had never been a close friend of his. But this act cemented a friendship with him which I have to this day. We regularly talk and I regularly remind him of this act of kindness on his part, something which for him was a slight act of kindness, but for me meant the world.  There are decent people in the world, and he was and is one of the most decent.