Time to strike out homophobic slurs

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/05/2017 (2525 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The word he used was “faggot.”

Some news outlets hesitated to print or mention the epithet Toronto Blue Jays centrefielder Kevin Pillar recently hurled at an opposing pitcher, concerned that repeating it would somehow make a bad situation worse. In fact, we need to get this word out in the open to understand the gravity of what happened.

This all started in a game on May 17, when Mr. Pillar, enraged after striking out on a series of confounding curve balls, directed the word “faggot” at the opposing pitcher. He was clearly angry because the pitcher did not challenge him with a good old-fashioned fastball and Mr. Pillar used a word synonymous with homosexual to demean what he believed to be weak and unmanly behaviour.

Although faggot and its compressed version, fag, can mean many things to many people in other parts of the world, in North America these words are used unambiguously by straights to dehumanize gay, lesbian or transgender people. But they are also used commonly by straight men against other straight men to describe behaviour that is, as Mr. Pillar intended, less than manly.

It is likely that a clear majority of Canadian society would agree that as a direct attack on anyone from the LGBTQ community, this kind of epithet is unacceptable. That is not to say it has completely fallen out of fashion as a homophobic slur; the LBGTQ community can attest that it’s still in use. But out in the open, most of us understand that these words are no longer socially acceptable.

Lamentably, both words continue to thrive in their secondary but no less offensive context: as a way of challenging a man’s masculinity.

It is not uncommon to hear children and teenagers hurl the words at each other as a playful dig. We can hear them used in our schools, on the soccer pitch or hockey rink and anywhere else youth still congregate. We can even hear these words being by used older men who have committed to retaining a decidedly teenage mentality well into their adult years.

These words have been allowed to thrive in their secondary meaning because, it seems, most of us think they are not as ugly or offensive when hurled by a straight man at another straight man. That is a sorry, dangerous misconception. Using these words as an insult is dehumanizing for LGBTQ people regardless of whether they, or a straight man, were the intended targets. It’s about time that straight society joined others in condemning the use of these words in any context.

The Blue Jays reacted quickly by suspending Mr. Pillar for two games. For his part, Mr. Pillar owned up to the fact that he “helped extend the use of a word that has no place in… society.” Those are reasonable responses, but they do not go far enough to create greater understanding about the danger that these words represent.

The Blue Jays could help matters by joining many other Major League Baseball teams and organizing a Pride Day event at their ballpark in Toronto, a city that is home to one of the continent’s biggest Pride celebrations.

They could also dispatch Mr. Pillar to talk to young men — perhaps even young baseball players — about why these words are dangerous and unacceptable.

Then maybe, with a bit of luck, we wouldn’t have to print these words in a newspaper ever again.