dirrty laundry.

it's already that time again! enjoy. please.

Taking it back.

By Robert

“Melissa wants to know if you’ll go out with her,” the voice at the other end of the phone told me. She hadn’t told me who she was. She didn’t have to. It was Amy, Melissa’s best friend. They were hateful girls. Tough girls. Or, I guess, as tough as you can be in an upper-middle-class school in Ponca City, Oklahoma.

“Uh, no,” I stammered, my heart beating, not knowing what to say.

Amy giggled. “That’s ok,” she said. “You’re probably a faggot anyway.” I heard laughter in the background before she hung up.

I stood there with the phone, not sure what to do, holding onto the receiver. I didn’t want to make a scene.

“Who was that?” my mother asked, coming into the living room.

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“Well, what did they say?”

“I don’t know,” I lied again.

“So what? They could’ve just been speaking Russian for all you know?”

“Yes,” I told her. I knew that telling her what Amy said would upset her. I knew that my mother already suspected that I was different. The torment I was enduring at school had now come into my house and it was only a matter of time before it happened again. Next time my mother might be listening on another extension. She might hear it herself, and then what? She’d know what people were saying about me; that I wasn’t just quiet or bookish or effeminate. She’d know everything.

“Ok,” my mother said, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and walking back into the kitchen to continue reheating dinner (my mom doesn’t cook). I hung up the heavy, beige phone with its tangled cord.

It was the first time I can remember being called a faggot. I was in second grade.

There are plenty of people who say that when children call each other “faggot” that they’re just mimicking what they’ve heard their parents or the television say; that they have no idea what it actually means. In my case, though, they were dead on.

I hate to admit it, but it’s something I can’t seem to forget. Early on it colored my idea of myself, of how I appear to other people; of how obvious it is that I’m not, deep-down, like everyone else. Even at nine I wasn’t fooling anyone, no matter how quiet I was or how stiff I tried to keep my wrist. There was a reason that I lingered in music class or kept to myself at the edge of the playground, where the trees were, near the houses. There was a reason I was different, and if Amy, a girl not known for her upbringing or her intelligence, could see it, anyone could.

I can’t remember my father’s birthday; I can’t remember the combination to my lock at the gym; I can’t remember to put my new proof of insurance card in my wallet. I can’t remember to take out the trash or to change my windshield wipers. But I remember every time I’ve been called a faggot.

And that pisses me off. I decided a long time ago—it’ll be eight years this coming May—that I wasn’t going to take it any more. I wasn’t going to be called a faggot and then blush, embarrassed; I wasn’t going to pretend that I hadn’t heard it, hoping that my friends (mainly Southern Baptists back then) wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. I decided to take all of the anger and hate that I was pointing at myself and use it for something else. I was going to use it to fight.

As soon as I was able to say, “Yeah. I’m a faggot. Is that a problem?” I took control. I call myself a faggot because I’ve reclaimed it. If I call myself a faggot there’s not much left to hurt me. It describes my culture’s experience; it snaps people awake. There are people who think that being called a faggot is the worst possible insult; that being called gay is humiliating. But I’m not ashamed. My people have been derided and spat upon, kicked out of families and churches. But we’re fighting back.

When I say I’m a faggot, I’m saying I’m not going to take any more insults. Call me what you will, but this is me standing up for myself.

I’m taking this word as my own, writing it a new history. I’m not letting people forget. Yeah, I’m a faggot. Is that a problem?

Robert is a classical singer, writer, and secretary who's proud to live in Baltimore, the gem of the bay. Learn more at http://reluctantreceptionist.blogspot.com.