Understanding Sexual Orientation

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People use anti-LGBTQ slurs to harm/discipline others or reassure themselves about their own gender/sexuality.

Slurs are a microcosm of a larger societal system that is designed to maintain hetero-cis-normativity.

Slurs cause significant social harms.

Reducing LGBTQ slur use is possible online, in schools, and in communities.

We’ve all heard them. Queer. F*g. D*ke. These LGBTQ slurs are disturbingly common in everyday vernacular. They are fixtures in society.

But what motivates people to use LGBTQ slurs? Why are we still “smearing the queer”? What harms do LGBTQ slurs cause? What are some possible solutions?

What Motivates People to Use LGBTQ Slurs?

LGBTQ slurs are everywhere—from day-to-day conversations, to social media, to shows, movies, and songs, we all hear LGBTQ slurs. But why? We likely don’t even realize what motivates someone to use LGBTQ slurs.

In my recent book, Interrogating the Use of LGBTQ Slurs: Still Smearing the Queer? (Worthen, 2024), I worked to uncover the mechanisms behind LGBTQ slur usage. I found that slurs are a very real microcosm of a larger societal system that is designed to maintain hetero-cis-normativity (the normative expectations that people should be both heterosexual and cisgender) (Worthen, 2020).

When someone uses an LGBTQ slur, they are participating in the active verbal admonishment of people they perceive as not meeting their expectations about gender and sexuality norms. They use these slurs to harm, to discipline, and to reassure themselves about their own gender/sexuality.

When that happens, the LGBTQ slur operates as a release valve in a situation where someone perceives a personal threat. I call this the queer adjustment. In efforts to assert and affirm one’s social power and secure hetero-cis-normativity, one uses an LGBTQ slur to stigmatize and discipline those perceived as not hetero-cis-normative enough. This helps to maintain a hierarchy that secures the privileged positions of those most invested in upholding hetero-cis-normativity and the devalued placement of LGBTQ people beneath them. LGBTQ slur use is a response bigots use to participate in The Queer Adjustment and police hetero-cis-normativity violations........

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