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Equality and Diversity

November 3rd, 2011

That’s so gay? – Gay is the Word

1 comment

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Equality and Diversity

November 3rd, 2011

That’s so gay? – Gay is the Word

1 comment

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

‘Gay is the Word’ is an original short movie produced by Liverpool University staff and students in response to the (often unconscious) inappropriate use of the word ‘gay’. Watch the movie in the post below.

Members of Liverpool University’s LGBT Staff Network collaborated with students to produce an original short film on the inappropriate use of the word ‘gay’.

The idea for the film ‘Gay Is the Word’ came about when Lee Cooper, LGBT Network Chair had a conversation with Network members Freya Jarman and Andy Heath. Freya described how she felt about the misuse of the word gay:

“A few years ago, I started noticing how many of my students would use the word ‘gay’ in place of where I would have used ‘naff’ or ‘rubbish’. It was clear that students didn’t intend for it to be homophobic as such, as they would use the word in front of me, as an out member of staff, and in public environments (as when one student used the word in this way twice on stage as part of an assessed performance). But it bothered me quite significantly as I began to understand the word’s new meaning, for it became clear that the word ‘gay’ can only mean something naff, weak, or otherwise undesirable when based on a logic of homophobia (in which gay men are perceived as weak, effeminate, and ‘not real men’).”

The Network decided that they needed to do something to make people understand that this use of the word gay was wrong. The result was ‘Gay is the Word’.

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Equality and Diversity

Posted In: Sexual orientation

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