Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yep, and "Gay" went through several changes from:

arrow A very happy and jolly person. (Like in the Christmas song)
arrow Before the 1800's (I think) They were used to show off people who were unrestricted in their sexual activities-primarily for the heterosexual.
+"Gay man" was a man was a womanizer or a man whore (....sorry if that offended I sat for about 3 minutes and couldn't think of a better term)

+"Gay woman" was a prostitute

+"Gay House" was a brothel.

(I think Batman and Robin fall somewhere between these two, I might be wrong)

arrow later went to those who were still carefree and unrestricted in their sexual activity but encompassed more than just the opposite sex.

arrow To now, where is use is either a derogatory term or a labeling term for a group of people.

The mean went from something so very happy and nice to something so ...widely argued over.

Isn't Etymology is fun?

I've only been offended once but the word.
"Are you a f*****t?"
"WTF."
-insert long rant about the true definition of the word here-

It only happened once and only once. Seems that I told that girl off good. xd

I do use it sometimes. But only jokingly about myself.

You probably didn't mean this- but that came across as really privileged and bordering on racist. In the Black community- the use of identifiers like Black, African American and even slurs like ****** are really complicated- just like in the LGBT community.

I think when we talk about words like this- there are 2 things to think about. The first is Neurolinguistics- the mind links words and concepts in complicated ways and intention doesn't register in the brain the same way. Calling me a ******- even by Black friends, is triggering because of personal experiences and overall history of Black Culture in the US. Same with calling me any other names that are tied to my sexual identity or gender identity.

The second thing to think about are the internal social politics- cultures develop social expectations that can benefit or harm themselves when it comes to the whole Neurolinguistic stuff I mentioned- but in the end, the culture should have the right to self-identify as they want without outsiders marginalizing them further- no matter what group it is.

Do I let my friends call my slurs? No. It's more detrimental than beneficial and it leads to further marginalization- but I'm not going to tell any member of another group they can't use their own slur for themselves if they want to.

haha omg i remember that book!! ^_^