You Can't Call Things “Gay” or “Retarded,” And 9 Other Social Memos Some People Somehow Still Haven't Gotten
By Brianna Wiest
You would be appalled by how many people don’t acknowledge the following. I have been becoming more and more attuned to the fact that not everybody understands some really basic regarding what’s socially acceptable; that are really important for moving our society forward to a more accepting and just place. I don’t know everything, and there are a thousand different I’m sure I left out, but here is a good place to start. This is not intended for the people who will naturally respond “yeah, we know this!” It’s for those people to send to the people who still don’t (and feel free to add your own ideas on as well).
1. You can’t call “retarded.” It’s just not socially acceptable anymore. It was once a term used in the context of “mental retardation” and out of that context, nothing but associate something stupid and not worthwhile people who are most definitely not “stupid” and are worthwhile. In short, it’s synonymous the lesser, much like…
2. You can’t call gay either! Because gay is a term that should be reserved for sexual orientation, not to use as an adjective/adverb for that are flimsy and weak and funny. Even if you don’t say it the intention of being derogatory, that not matter, because you are still using the term in the context of it describing something that is, again, the lesser.
3. Bisexual people don’t choose their sexuality once they settle down a man or woman, and this is because sexuality works on a spectrum, not categorically, which is generally an important concept for people to grasp.
4. One’s gender identity, performance and sexuality not have to align, and honestly, rarely flawlessly! By this I mean, you cannot determine someone’s sexual orientation by how they look or act.
5. Gender roles are a thing of the past (and thank God). Assuming or even voicing the idea that a woman should be “in her place” or that men are lesser if they are more effeminate or anything else that implies there’s a way that one “should” or “shouldn’t” be in the context of society’s standards, not their own, is potentially hurtful and otherwise ill-thought-out.
6. Transgender is not the same thing as intersex. The former means that one not feel as though their outer physical body accurately aligns who they are internally. The latter is when that physical body is not definitively male or female– something of which not necessarily have to be “corrected” by surgery.
7. It’s not okay to judge someone or assume anything about them by the way they dress or choose to express themselves physically. Wearing a skirt not make a woman a “slut,” and neither having a healthy sex life, because “healthy” is subjective to what works for each person, and everybody is entitled to pursue one.
8. On that note, victim-blaming in the context of sexual assault is also inappropriate, because it takes responsibility away from the person who is actually guilty of doing something, like, you know, forcing someone to have sex.
9. There is no “right” way to be. There is no “right” religion to practice, or lifestyle to have or way to love someone. To put it all in perspective, religious people subscribe to ideas pertaining to love and justice and right-doing while wars have been waged for the sake of “religion” more than anything else. That’s how we take beautiful and make them nasty and vindictive. At the end of the day, it’s just not okay to be cruel and judgmental over the parts of people that are inherent to them– or over anything, for that matter. We’ll all be looking back at the same-sex marriage debacle like we do segregation, and this will just be the beginning.
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