Is Fa*got my Nickname?

I guess I missed the memo.

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Disclaimer for the reader: This piece contains homophobic slurs, mentions of harassment, bullying, and depression.

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On Sunday, I was walking in Brooklyn when I saw a man coming toward me on the sidewalk. From about forty paces away, he lunged his chest toward the street and spit at a person on a bicycle, shouting something indistinguishable but certainly profane. Walking under scaffolding, as one often is in the city, there was limited space to distance myself. Still, I yielded as close to the right side of the sidewalk as I could. Then, as we closed in on each other only seconds later, he swerved his body directly in front of mine, deliberately contradicting the standard flow of traffic. As I stuttered my feet, half-hoping we were doing an oopsie dance around each other, he forced his body into mine and knocked me to a scaffold pole. While he did this, he said, "get out of my way, faggot." 

What I did next surprised me.

You see, this wasn’t my getting called faggot to my face. That happened in fifth grade. A sixth-grader, Jason, saw me wearing my Buffy the Vampire Slayer t-shirt - something I was very proud of at the time -, pushed me into the wall outside the classroom and asked me, "are you a faggot?" I froze, fearful and confused. Then, I reacted the way most kids that age do - with adamant denial. As it turned out, Jason failed sixth grade. The following year, just before our elementary school graduation, our class walked toward recess, and Jason told me that if I didn't go through puberty by middle school, it was proof that I was gay. 

There was a clique of pre-pubescent boys that, at some point during the dawn of our Jefferson Middle School days, started calling me Faggot exclusively. It was as if it were my actual name. One of them proudly referred to me this way in the middle of our seventh-grade math class while discussing triangles, and our teacher didn’t do anything but tell him to raise his hand before speaking. (In fairness to her, I had interrupted her lesson that day to tell the following joke. "What did the isosceles triangle say to the equilateral triangle? That's acute triangle.")

The first time I got beat up, it was by that same clique of boys. They chased me down Courtney parkway - the road I walked to get home after school - and called me a faggot before knocking me into a drainage ditch, out of sight to passing cars. 

The nickname caught on quickly. Soon, kids I didn’t even know - ones that had fed into the middle school from other elementary schools - started to call me Faggot too. Most of the time, all I could do was stay quiet. I’d freeze, taking in their barbs over and over.

Eventually, I got fed up with the harassment and started fighting back in one way or another. Anytime someone would make fun of me, I'd return an equally hateful remark. Or, I'd get in their face as much as I could, trying to instigate a fight without throwing the first punch. I was taught not to hit first, so I never did that, but I wanted to fight. I wanted them to lose their cool, be confused by returned aggression, and punch me. They just needed to do it in front of a teacher. By that point, I’d learned that the school wouldn’t do anything unless they physically hit me and a teacher or administrator saw it happen.

There was a tall eighth grader that I'd never spoken to before in my gym period. During free throws on the basketball court, he said I “threw like a faggot.” I got in his face and screamed at him. I said he was all bark and no bite and that he was too much of a wimp to fight me in front of everyone. I went on and on, repeatedly cussing at him without a filter. I wasn’t holding back. In A Christmas Story, there is a scene where Ralphie is beating up his own schoolyard bully. He’s running off at the mouth like a sailor and can’t seem to stop himself, overcome by layer upon layer of residual torment. It was just like that, except I begged this kid to hit me instead of the other way around.

The eighth-grader knew he couldn't hit me or he'd get in trouble, though, so he didn't. He kept his cool. For all my effort, I couldn’t get under his skin the way he got underneath mine. After he finally walked away, he and almost everyone else laughed at me. The same boy called me faggot again in the hallway later that day. 

I got picked on and called a faggot so much in middle school that it almost broke me.

At the time, I was going through puberty, and as new feelings grew, I became terrified. I did not understand or have mental permission to accept my rising sexuality. Even worse, I worried that those kids were right. I thought I might actually be a faggot. The idea that those who’d been picking on me were correct was one of the worst things I could imagine.

I didn’t have the language for it at that age, but the combination of everything going on made me deeply depressed. I was afraid of the constant harassment, and I was afraid of what I was feeling inside. I had no sense of self to hold onto, which confused me. If I wasn’t David, as I thought I was when I was young, but, instead, Faggot, as my contemporaries had renamed me, then I simply didn’t want to be me.

Fortunately, there was just enough love, support, and stubbornness around to keep me moving. I had people like Ms. Broadway, our middle school band and orchestra teacher, who let me stay in her classroom whenever I wanted before or after school. I also had Sammy, my first love, whose partnership strengthened me. With her and a small misfit group of friends in my corner, I learned to take the harassment a little less seriously. At times, I almost embraced it. 

I was raised right by my parents, so there was never a moment when I believed that being bisexual or gay was inherently wrong. Yes, I was terrified to be “gay” myself because our society and culture are complicated and hateful, but I knew that one’s sexuality was not something to be judged in my logical mind. So, strengthened by the power of my tiny community and upbringing, when someone called me a faggot, I started responding with, "thanks for noticing!" 

"If they want to think I'm a faggot, so be it." I thought. “I won’t let them get to me anymore.”

Around fourteen, I was training to be a soccer referee, and an older teenager from a highly conservative family called me a faggot during a water break. We were taking night classes in the cafeteria of a neighboring high school gym, and I sat on a small circular plastic seat. I swiveled in the seat and delivered what I’d rehearsed. 

"Thanks for noticing!"

I looked around at the other trainees, expecting some shock and awe. It felt strong. Then, he stood up. 

"So you are a faggot? I should kick your ass right now." 

My blithe confirmation of being a faggot inspired a pavlovian response in him. Faggot = Violence. It was like he'd trained for that moment. It was as if it was his duty to pummel the fags. He stood up and rushed toward me, easily seventy pounds heavier and three inches taller. With fifteen or twenty other people watching, he was ready to strike. I stood up as well, familiar with the flow of these interactions by that point, and braced for a fight.

Fortunately, our proctor happened to be my soccer coach at the time. His voice broke the bubbling tension when he said, "Sit the fuck down shit head!" He meant the other guy, for once.

After hurricane Katrina devastated Louisianna and the gulf coast, I got permission from our high school to replace last period with a ticketed talent show, raising money to help victims of the storm. At the show's end, I stood with my co-host and announced how much money we'd raised. There was applause, and I felt great about what we'd achieved. Then, another student's voice stood out amidst the rising chatter as we walked off stage. “Faggot!”. I stopped smiling, shooting daggers into the audience, but unable to match the voice with a person.

Sammy and I - still dating since eighth grade - saw a movie for this class we were both taking in college. In the film, two men kissed, and the audience rippled with groans and discomfort. A couple of guys in front of us shouted, “faggots!” referring to the characters on screen. Sammy didn't hesitate because she is an incredible person. She told them to “shut up and leave!” like a total badass. One of them responded, “Okay, someone is gay!” I sank into my seat, a little fearful but proud and grateful for the strength of my girlfriend.

The following year, I came out of the closet as bisexual. I entered a phase of significant self-discovery but felt freedom and peace that I’d not experienced up to that point. I was proud, and I felt like David again.

I was jogging the perimeter of campus when a water bottle hit me in the head, thrown from a passing pickup truck, as a man hung out the passenger side yelling, “faggot!” I flicked him off and kept on my way until the vehicle turned around to follow me. I went to university in Tallahassee, Florida, and the kind of men driving trucks and hurling slurs come in many shapes and sizes, so I didn’t know who I was dealing with. 

In short, I had to run.

I sprinted to the end of the block and turned left into the Southside of campus, weaving through short roads, around the soccer fields, and maneuvering my way closer toward other people. Eventually, I lost them and went back to my apartment, sweating and high on adrenaline.

Another time at school, someone drove by and called me a faggot while I was talking to a friend outside class. I inhaled, prepared to bite back, but my friend did it for me. She screamed at the car until it was out of sight, going so far as to chase it down the road a little bit. She might as well have been shaking her fist in the air. She came back to me, exasperated and hurt. She was distraught that someone had been so terrible. She assumed the situation was something extraordinary, but when I told her, “it happens all the time,” she barely believed me. Still, I was grateful for her support at that moment. It helped me stay levelheaded, but that doesn’t happen every time.

In my first year living in New York City, I was on a very crowded N train in Astoria. Headed home after a late shift at the restaurant, I was exhausted and stood against a door. I held a balmy metal support bar with my right hand and did my best not to breathe in the packed subway car. A group of partiers finishing their night out filled the train car with a raucous conversation; it was louder and more obnoxious than any person ever needs to be in a public place. One of the men in the group stood right in front of me, practically close enough to kiss. He used the word faggot indirectly over and over while showboating for his friends. It was common in his language, and he didn’t think twice about using it among strangers. I tried to tune him out, but it wasn’t possible, and my blood started to boil. I imagined all of the things I should say to him and how I should make him stop, but I bit my tongue. He was boisterous and awful, but he mainly was just loud. I wanted to stay out of it. Then, he looked me in the face and announced to the rest of the train, “[something something]...like this faggot!” 

Not to be a stereotype of the early 2020s, but I was triggered. In fact, I was so triggered that I went into an actual rage blackout. A rage blackout is like being in a drunk blackout, except the memory inhibitor is unbridled anger instead of alcohol. As a result, the details of the entire altercation are now blurry in my memory. 

I know that I was angry, and I was yelling. I know that I was arguing with this guy and the people around him for at least a few minutes. I know that the man and his people backed away from me. I know that the group got off the train eventually. I know that, luckily, there was no physical violence involved. 

But I don’t know what I said. Maybe it was good? Perhaps, in my monologue to him, I caught a wave of power, and everything I screamed was well-formed and intelligent. But, honestly, I doubt it, and I don’t know. I've replayed the event dozens of times in my mind, but I just don’t have the details. 

I got called a faggot for the millionth time and blacked out because it hurt me so much. 

That instance was difficult for me to move past. I felt like I had regressed as a person because of my reaction. I was a functioning adult, but my unbothered days and days of owning the moniker of faggot with sarcastic pride seemed to have disappeared. I let a random man on the train get to me so much that I lost myself again for a moment.

I made a quiet promise to myself. The next time someone called me a faggot, I would try to let it go. But it isn’t always easy.

I kissed a boy in Chelsea's flower district a year or two later. A man put his hands on our shoulders, trying to separate us from each other physically. He said, "Aw man, that gay shit. Stop that gay shit. Stop that faggot shit, man." 

I stepped toward him, telling him to “get the fuck away from us,” with a familiar youthful and chaotic confidence. The boy I was with pulled my arm, begging me to let it go. I had to let it go because he wanted me to. And because I didn’t want to lose myself again.

Just after the 2016 election, in broad daylight on the corner of 36th street and 5th avenue, a group of men and women in MAGA hats waited at a crosswalk. (This alone is proof that they were tourists.) I entered the street, crossing toward the seven train a few blocks up. One of the tourists raised his hand and pointed at me. "Oh my god, look at this faggot." I had to let it go because I had a brunch. And because I didn’t want to lose myself again.

Once, while waiting tables, a woman didn't like her meal and, when she signed her bill, instead of adding a tip and signature, she wrote, “no tip for fags.” I had to let it go because she was already gone. And because I didn’t want to lose myself again.

For some reason, I've been called a faggot casually and repeatedly since I was about eleven years old, and, most of the time, I have just to let it go.

On Sunday in Brooklyn, though, I struggled to do that.

When that guy physically ran into me and said, “get out of my way faggot,” every fiber in me wanted to retaliate. My first impulse was to fight. I wanted to overpower, outsmart, and demean him in exchange for what he’d done, and I almost did. I opened my mouth and stiffened my spine to retaliate but stopped short. Something deep inside helped me pause just long enough to see him continue walking as if nothing had happened.

I kept walking too. I took deep breaths. I looked over my shoulder repeatedly to make sure I wasn't being followed (easily one of the worst feelings possible), and when I paused at a corner, I replayed the scenario. l thought, I should have said this, and I should have said that. I should have punched him. Wouldn’t I have been justified if I’d pushed him back or called him something harmful in return? Wouldn’t it have felt good to stand up for myself instead of swallowing my voice and retreating? Shouldn’t I have done something instead of allowing him to think that kind of behavior would be tolerated? 

Maybe I could have done something, but every response and reaction comes at a cost.

I don’t like the feelings that bubble up inside when I react. They stick with me for too long, causing additional pain and confusion. More than anything, they remind me of someone that I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be the guy slinging hateful words at strangers on the street and taking out his pain on other people. There is enough of that in the world, and it disgusts me.

I don’t know what inspires people to weaponize this word - faggot - against me so often. I assume it is because something in me reads as undeniably queer, and people can just see it. Queerness, for me, is a switch I can’t turn off most of the time (though I am certainly not without some straight-passing privileges), and I don’t want to. I’m not afraid of that queerness. I’m not scared to be perceived as a faggot like I was for so long in my young life. If anything, I am eager to ensure that people are aware of that queerness. I am proud to be queer.

To be honest, I'm still processing it all. I still have a quart of adrenaline curdling in my stomach, making me uncomfortable and on edge. It flares up randomly and with strength. I have continued to wonder if I could have done something more than I did. But in the end, I am glad I didn't.

What I have to hold onto now is the growth. There were times when I wasn't able to leave the bait on the hook. When people called me a faggot, abusing me because they felt it was their right, or because of their conditioning, because they were emboldened to by a newly elected president, or just because they were plain old assholes. There were times when I would freeze in fear and others when I would respond with indignance. There were times when I was strong enough to let it go and forget it ever happened, and times I had to protect myself literally. In this situation, though, I was able to rise above it. I found my inner peace for just long enough to see the bigger picture.

When I was a kid, struggling to accept my sexuality amidst constant bullying, I didn’t even want to be me. Now, I don’t want to be anyone else. So, this time, I got called a faggot, and had to let it go because if I didn’t, I would have become someone I don’t want to be again.

I got called a faggot again on Sunday. It wasn’t the first time, and it likely will not be the last time, but at least I feel like me.

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