Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Ijustthinkbecauseit'slikeagainstthenorm,andIthinkit'skindoflookeddown
upon if you are gay, so if you want to get a point across you're not going to be
like “stop being straight,” because it really wouldn't do any good—what does
that mean? But everyone knows that if you call someone “gay,” what you're im-
plying and what the actions are.
The students (including the student researchers) often expressed difficulty under-
standing why using homophobic insults was inappropriate even in the absence of
someonewhoisgayorevenifusingthewordwasnotapunishableoffense.Forexample
one of Jason's classmates explained:
Yea,yougottobecareful,there'slikeagaykidinourschool—there'sactuallya
couple— but there's one who is pretty outwardly gay and like—he like bothered
someone and someone called him a faggot and there was like this huge
deal—like the kid got suspended and all that. So when you know you're in the
vicinity of those people you've got to watch your words.
For many of the students, they draw clear distinctions between calling someone gay
as in homosexual and gay as in doing something negative. Another of Jason's peers ex-
plained, “Gay in our school doesn't mean homosexual, it means stupid.”
The student researchers also had a difficult time seeing this distinction. John (SR) ar-
gued, “Yeah 'gay' is something like an anecdote or takes on connotations…. Like you
can tell by context where 'gay' is meant to be negative or 'gay' is meant to homosexu-
al.” Paul (SR) agreed, “You are not actually saying someone is actually gay you are just
saying what you are doing is gay. It's just like if they are annoying you.” The use of the
word
gay
was so pervasive that it erased for the students how their definition of “gay”
was connected to and because of the marginalization of homosexuality. These invisible
homophobicinsultshelpedcontroltherepresentationalspacesforhowgenderwasinter-
preted and performed by defining the boundaries of “normal” masculinity at Rockport
as heterosexual masculinity.
Students who directly and maliciously insulted gay students at Rock-port were pun-
ished. However, the faculty often contributed to or accepted the homophobic environ-
ment. Mike (AD) illustrated this:
[Rockport is] a conservative institution, it's always going to be a conservative
institution. Like I said, don't fight the market. If you don't want that go to [a less
conservative school]. You know, it is what it is and I accept that … I don't think
you'll ever have lots of kids coming out and saying they are gay here, not be-
