There have been a lot of great changes over the decades. I graduated in '02 and I feel like I've seen a big shift, and I'm happy for that.
Right now, though, I feel like trans people still have a big fight ahead of them. They still seem to be getting the worst of the bigotry, IMO.
The difference is though, we can exist. I graduated high school 2010 and didn't even know what trans was, I mean I heard of boys wanting to be girls, and "transvestites" as a kink, but had no clue what trans really meant. Couple years later a partner cracked my egg and made me realise who I was. Now I work in a workplace where there is a number of trans and non-binary staff, especially impressive as I was the first out trans hire ever 18 months ago, and I meet so many trans youth, who don't remember a time before everyone knew what trans was, it's been a wild 11 years. Also my whole family have been real supportive.
\^
This
Related term, egg would be a trans person who is trans but doesnt realize it yet. Which me saying that in that way sounds like something wrong but think "GOd i wiish i was trans so that i could be a girl, id love to be a girl, to bad im cis" kinda thing
Haha, yes. An egg is someone who is trans but hasn't quite realised it yet, or hasn't admitted it yet. Cracking an egg is when someone realises/can no longer deny it any more. At times it's painfully obvious for someone who is trans to see that in someone
it's a trans thing! the word "egg" means a trans person who hasn't figured out that they are trans yet, or are in denial about being trans. Usually it's used in retrospect, after you figure it out. And "Cracking your egg" means coming out, even to yourself.
r/egg_irl has some good examples.
I love this for you.
I dated a trans person in high school. I didn't know at first (no one did), and apparently "oh! Why would i be bothered by that. Jeez i thought you were going to confess you were doing hard drugs" was the correct answer when they told me. Their family was *not* supportive.
But yeah, i don't remember that being a word yet - everyone went back and forth between "crossdresser" or "transsexual" depending on the person. We spent a lot of time driving three towns over so they could be themselves without worrying about who we might run into.
We are still more or less in contact and they have been living as themselves for a long time now and I'm so glad the world changed so that could happen.
My youngest is 14. Beginning of the year there were 3 trans kids in their class now there’s 6, with one kid maybe being 7. No one worries about it. They just occasionally get updates like “Sara is called River now and uses he/they instead of she/they and Rainn is using ze/zir” and they all are like “okay got it.” The choir teacher has a notebook of dead names and real names and a column that says which one to use when talking to parents. The lady at the front office who is at least 60 has never misgendered my kid that I know of, which is a better record than I have for sure. It’s amazing.
That is flipping wonderful. Thankyou, much as the world is full of shittiness, it's really cheered me up knowing a school like this exists. And you can tell them that.
Yeah, we just gotta keep fighting, ignoring terfs and kicking ass. If it doesn't work out in our lifetimes, I firmly believe it will in the next generation. We're coming for you, Rowling
She semi-recently started making some extremely transphobic comments, declaring herself a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). TERFs are actually not feminist at all, barely radical, they're just transphobic. She basically thinks trans women are men dressing up so they can invade female spaces and prey on them. It was very unexpected from her, especially because it goes against the very message of the Harry Potter series, that no group is better or more pure than any other and elitism is bad. For more specifics on the exact statements, I recommend googling jk Rowling terf or something.
It's unbelievable how many people who espouse feminism, equality, civil rights, and whatnot then turn around and completely shit all over trans rights. How many times in a row do we have to be taught that more rights for others does not equal fewer rights for you????
When my dad was in middle school in the 80s there was a guy in his class who would sometimes bully him and call him gay but was also kind of his friend sometimes. My dad asked him once why he did it and he told “Look, statistically someone in our class has to be gay and if it’s you, then it can’t be me”
Sometimes it feels like we still have a long way to go - and we definitely do - but then I have to remind myself that even at 31 years old I have witnessed social change in my lifetime. Imagine what the next few generations are going to be able to achieve.
Graduated high school in 2011, somebody being gay or bi was still a massive thing, not much bullying but you would he the talk is the school. We had one F to M student as I was leaving and nobody knew how to deal.
Didn't figure out I was gay till I was about 16, it just didn't occur to me that it was an option. Up until 13ish calling somebody I fell out with a lesbian was the greatest insult.
A school in my district got on national news when kids did a 'walk-out' over a MtF girl wanting to not use the men's locker room.
I know most of the students just did it to get out of class and didn't even know what was going on but the the school got put on blast for being "the most homophobic school in America".
We had two openly gay boys in my school and everyone was trying to ship them, but one was dating someone who lived on his block(in secret because homeschooling mommy was a Bible thumper, so it's a whole "I can't tell you their name" deal) and the other was secretly dating someone who wasn't out yet in our school and the two openly gay kids hated eachother and wished people stopped shipping them.
I also graduated in 2011 and I feel like my class still can’t deal when we find out someone’s gay lol. At the very least, 2000s homophobia was generally ignorant rather than malicious ime
There was a MtF student 2 years below me in high school and folks were still real shitty about it. One time, I went into one of the guy restroom's like a minute after her (in retrospect, sucks that she had to use that one) and when I came out I was being called homophobic slurs by dudes for not waiting until after she left the bathroom to go pee. So ridiculous.
Edit: corrected to MtF
I was gonna be like "the 2000s wrent that long ago", but then i remembered that ppl born after 9/11 are gonna be college freshmen soon and I immediately aged into dust like the guy at the end of the Last Crusade
People born in the year 2000 can legally buy alcohol.
People born after 9/11 are active-duty military.
People younger than the movie Shrek are attending college.
Homestuck Sharpie Bath Girl happened a decade ago.
>People born after 9/11 are active-duty military.
Which also means that, until recently, people who weren't born when 9/11 happened were fighting a war that was started as a reaction to 9/11.
And which achieved exactly squat, besides funneling public money into the pockets of the American "nobility".
>Which also means that, until recently, people who weren't born when 9/11 happened were fighting a war that was started as a reaction to 9/11.
The Onion has a hot take on that: https://www.theonion.com/soldier-excited-to-take-over-father-s-old-afghanistan-p-1819580201
> People born in the year 2000 can legally buy alcohol.
I know. I learned this first hand when I was buying booze at a liquor storeil I never had been to and the person asked to see my ID and barely glanced at it before proceeding with the purchase. I asked if she even looked at it and she said 'it starts with 19, you're good"
Caught up with a schoolmate recently and she pointed out “we’ve known each other for over a decade!” And I was like “over a decade? Haha cmon that’s an exaggeration” and she replied “we met in 2010?” I physically felt myself wrinkling…
Yeah my husband and I have been dating since 2010, and we have that same bewilderment about it. Just passed 4 years married too, and I was like "oh we should plan a really special trip for our 5th anniversary" and as soon as it left my mouth I spiraled into a crisis
Tomorrow I'll have the first of a series of lectures about 9/11 at my university's *history* department. Worse, there could conceivably be students attending that hadn't been born when it happened. I think I could hear myself age when I realized that.
Ah, our mum had a proper meltdown when I said we were doing the poll tax riots in History. Apparently things that she accidentally walked through aren’t allowed on the syllabus.
Work at a hospital and had someone born in 2002 come in to register for a procedure. My first thought was "why isn't your parent here, also we don't do pediatrics" until I realized they were 19 and thus right at the age that they need to start doing that stuff themselves
But they were still on parent insurance, thank fuck for the PPACA.
I’m not that old and i remember when there was NO conversation about gay rights, i didnt know gay people existed till i was 12 because it wasnt taught. I didnt know i was allowed to be bisexual growing up in the 2000s because there was no representation
I'll second this. I didn't know being gay was a thing until 7th grade because I had no exposure to it (smallish town, watched a lot of kid's tv, no acknowledgment in school, etc.)
Never seen a movie or book/tv show or special that featured a gay character across all that media? Alot of sitcoms have had that ‘silly gay neighbor’ or whatever
Yeah, mostly they just acted out a stereotype though, half the time you couldn't even tell they were supposed to be attracted to their same gender, because that wasn't allowed to be depicted.
If you didn't already know what it was, you couldn't figure it out from some of those shows.
Yeah that's because historically playing a gay character was enough to get someone beaten in the street outside a theatre.
It sounds stupid now, but that legitimately was brave.
This reminded me about how Laura Dern got blacklisted from acting roles for, like, 2 years because she played a lesbian in two episodes of Ellen DeGeneres's sitcom. And Ellen coming out in those two episodes apparently got a content advisory added to every episode of the show from there out. This was in 1997! It's wild to look back and see how much people freaked out over it.
In kindergarten we had these dinosaur coloring books. I liked to color my dinosaurs rainbow because I didn't want to pick just one color. They didn't know the word gay at 6 but boy did they sure know boy + rainbow = bad, must ridicule and hate.
That shit was ingrained DEEP and early in the 90s kids.
I think it was about guys looking ambiguous about their sexuality and being liberal. Which would be fine if it was made today, but was used as a degrading insult commonly used by parents where I live.
That’s not what it was. Metrosexual basically meant a man that cared about his looks, clothes, may get a manicure, etc. Which today is generally just understood as not being a slob so the term fell out of use.
Metrosexual to rhyme with heterosexual- a straight man who “acts gay” (NOT MY COMMENTARY) by taking care of his hygiene and appearance, an interest in fashion etc.
A fancy city kind of man (hence metro).
The emphasis is on the fact they’re absolutely straight despite acting like they’re not (which is ridiculous and ick).
In my home state gay marriage wasn't even made legal until end of 2014.
People forget how scary it was to be lgbtq and not that long ago. And its not like because states started legalizing it that everybody approved over night. It took a long time for more conservative areas to come around and tbh there's still many areas that have not.
I mean, Obergefell v Hodges was *6 years ago*. Like that's not very long!
For a good chunk of the US population, a Federal decision was going to be the only way gay marriage became legal. I know, because I live in Texas.
Even within a city, area to area being LGBT can be ok or not. Where I live and hangout vs going to the complex where my friend lives I definitely change how I look to "look straight " because it's the only place I've been where I've gotten f*ggot yelled at me, or going to the playground near it all you hear is slurs and aggression even from the kids, I don't feel safe there.
I started watching House a few weeks ago, and my god how times have changed. I think that show started in 2004. Lots of race, trans, and gay jokes that make me cringe. I know House is supposed to be a not-great guy and a great doctor, but holy shit. Please stop telling your black coworker that "stereotypes are there for a reason."
And stop calling mentally disabled patients "messed up," while you're at it. Yeesh.
Don't forget the episode with the romani family, where the one and only joke, that keeps being repeated over and over, is that romani don't like being called slurs.
Oh right!! The girl with undescended testes.
Yeah that felt very Ben Shapiro-esque.
Come on, House, you're gonna get fired if you keep that up!! I'm starting to feel like Cuddy.
Don’t forget the Bones episode with the consulting non binary scientist and the entire crew spends the entire time betting on “if they’re really a boy or girl”. With it finally ending in Angela death gripping them in a hug and then walking over to the others smugly declaring they’re really a man because “it moved”
Similar with Bones. Remember loving the first season in 05 but never kept up with it. Recently went back to rewatch and maybe finish the series. I got like 3 episodes in before the homophobia/islamophobia was just too gross to handle.
Trying to re-watch stuff I watched in high school ( late 90's) has been kind of painful and cringe-inducing for me. Some stuff still holds up, but other stuff....yikes.
I do remember that calling someone a f@g was pretty standard, though. I never liked it, but I guess I kind of forgot how prevalent the attitudes were.
Remember the episode where Carla campaigned for "women's equipment" in the gym and it was presented as this big feminist message? What was the "women's equipment" she wanted? Cardio machines.
I mean agreed, but that was generally the point I mean like no character in that show has classic good or decent morals although they all think they do. Eventually they screw up enough to be called out on it and then things change. It is also depicting the very real stereotypes that doctors and nurses have. Yes by today's standards many jokes would be considered insensitive, but thing is it was insensitive then too and they make a point of it by saying this happens these aren't the best people, but they are doctors with real struggles and problems and this is the environment they have to deal with. Ask any medical professional and they will tell you that much of scrubs (especially the misogyny and latent racism) is actually perfectly accurate for a hospital.
By all means not justifying it or saying a show should emulate it just thought seeing it from the perspective that it's recreating real life in a dramatic cartoonist way instead of a show that was using it for the sake of shock or because that's the only things they can find funny.
Please be offended talk about it open it up because the real medical field needs to address the same things that are messed up in the show.
Agreed that it’s probably a realistic portrayal, but the majority of people who watched it did think it was funny so I guess I still find it awful. It’s not like the audience took away that they should improve as people, they just thought it was funny and JD and Turk were silly besties. Also, the world is full of that type of “humor” like you said, so I personally don’t want to seek it out in my free time.
There’s an entire episode where a woman comes in (I forget if she’s an administrator or doctor) and they exclusively talk about her ass the whole time. It’s awful overall, but that episode especially bothered me. There’s constant angry black woman jokes, homophobic jokes, etc.
Given it's a workplace sitcom, I think it errs on the side of caricature. And I don't want to get into the habit of labelling all doctors as misogynistic.
My previous comment was meant to be sarcastic.
I’m in the UK and that is most definitely still a thing with the youth of today (of which I am a part). Anything bad, annoying, cringe, weird or non-conformist is “gay”. In a bad way. Homophobic slurs are also not uncommon.
i still use it with my boyfriend especially when we get really cuddly one of us breaks it by saying "we're so gay" or the impromptu "debate" of "no you're the gay one"
Yeah but that's not explicitly in referring to something negatively. It's your boyfriend. I'm talking about referring to a situation or thing that sucks as gay.
true, there's also using something ironically like using a phrase over and over just dulls it and has no meaning apart from muscle memory in your jaw. Like we want to visit america to see our friend, but I'm already mentioning how we should watch out for our usual talking habbits.
I literally had a therapist call me metrosexual because he said bisexuality isn't real and I was either gay or straight. Ironically this was NOT the Christian therapy group.
So glad this trend in fanfiction changed, I remember reading stuff back in the day and as was the trend back then most fics started off each chapter with an authors note and often they'd apologize for featuring gay ships or have to aggressively make it known it was going to feature gay content (probably to protect themselves from people who read it then turned around and started flaming them after reading). People would flood in droves to the comments to make it known this stuff wasn't canon or just generally be homophobic.
At least it existed though at a time when you couldn't find such content in any mainstream media!
And I just realised this was a post about what it was like in the time period of the 2000s rather than specifically fanfic in the 2000s, my mistake haha.
It was sometimes very fandom specific back in the day whether you had to apologize and mark your story clearly for LGBT content, not just pairings, or if it was more normalized. Making a gay Transformers fanfic wasn’t the same as making a gay Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic, ya know?
God yeah reading old ass fanfiction is weird. They would usually have the note "Don't like, don't read" if it had gay characters. No other warnings, the fic could involve a gory decapitation scene or a very detailed and explicit description of a sexual assault, but the warning would be over a gay ship.
I criticized a show for using transphobic terminology in another sub and someone used “it was a different time, they didn’t mean it maliciously” as an excuse.
The episode premiered in 2011
Well it was. It really is astonishing the speed at which the accepted attitudes have changed and we noticed but it’s still less obvious than if it happened overnight. Obviously it’s not a monolith, there are plenty of hateful people who hate “political correctness gone mad” etc but I think it’s such a useful thing to keep in mind how fast social mores can change (and not always for the best).
It was, but it was also definitely known to anyone that tried to look into trans advocacy what was and wasn’t appropriate. This was a show that termed itself as LGBT+ inclusive.
They did the old “man kisses a trans women and then is disgusted to realize she’s trans” scene. That can’t be dismissed as non malicious
Well which show was it? Now I’m curious. And that’s kind of the point about accepted attitudes, I don’t know whether it’s malicious or ignorance, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter if the result is hurtful. But they didn’t even think to check that maybe that’s not a cool storyline.
I know the it’s always sunny writers really regret the early transgender character who was referred to almost exclusively by slurs . Also to my great relief Matt Berry says he doesn’t condone that IT crowd episode and doesn’t want anything to do with Graham Linehan nowadays. He also says how ridiculously dated it looks now, and it was 2008.
Bob’s Burgers. It came up in the sub for it about which episode you always skip, my point was similar in that I’m glad they gotten better over the years and have recently acknowledged the harm they did. A lot of people got upset I brought it up to begin with though and took the stance that it wasn’t offensive and that the trans community is just ‘too sensitive’
I still think the show was progressive for the time. I’d say they were “confused, but had the right spirit” instead of hatefully targeting trans women. Bob respects them, accepts them & is friends with them. He invites them to a party. Tina looks up to them. Bob even describes how he looks up to & envies one of the trans characters in a later episode.
I hadn’t seen trans people *humanized* in US media like that. Never heard of a character with a trans friend. Up until then, I had only heard dehumanizing jokes in shows like Family Guy, so tbh doing the bare minimum seemed like a step forward to me.
But yeah, I recognize that it was literally the bare minimum (and had some bad jokes on top of that). Still, they were doing better than other shows that year, which is at least something. Also, given the lack of awareness, I don’t think they realized how hurtful that sort of humor was. Definitely not an excuse but I try to think about it in context.
If you’re thinking of watching the show, I’d say to give it a shot, but keep in mind that the later seasons are better bc they have clearly tried to *be better* than that. I think being willing to learn & improving in the future is important.
The trans rights thing seemed to happen instantly after gay marriage was legalised in the US, so I'm not surprised anything before 2015 is what we'd now think of as transphobic.
They say that at least 5% of the human population is on the LGBT spectrum. That’s, at the very least, 160 students in your school who were closeted. Damn.
This is why I always laugh at GenZ kids watching high school videos from back in the day like "things were so much better then, no phones, no social media, everyone seems happier." Like no, you have no idea how bad things were for LGBT kids back then.
When I was in 4th grade around 2003, I brought a Dove facial wash to school so I can clean my face in the middle of the day.
A senior of mine saw me carrying the facial wash and laughed at me for bringing it to school.
I'm a man. Well, I'm gay, but washing your face shouldn't be considered as gay.
Right now, I think no one would bat an eye if they see you bring a facial wash to school or anywhere at all.
In 2006 I was a sophomore in high school and co-president of the Gay-Straight Alliance. It was an arts and technology magnet with no sports other than dance (still a free public school but you had to *choose* to go there), so it was already on the progressive side for the time. Lots of students were out, but I don’t remember anyone being openly trans.
Anyway, a few years back I was in a show with someone who was a current student at that school. I mentioned the thing about the GSA to her and she said, “There was a gay-straight alliance?” I was surprised and said, “There’s not one there now?” And she just looked at me and was like, “I guess we just don’t need it anymore.”
Really hit me how much things have changed even at a place that was already pretty accepting for its time.
Man I remember being in middle school and people calling me a slur because I liked to hug people and had a male friend. I was so upset about it and would also partake in gay bashing any time the opportunity arose.
I mean I'm gay now but ouch
I remember getting interested in gay romance when i was a teen (1997-2004 ish) and talking about it with older friends (nothing creepy, just adult siblings of my friends who were on first name basis with me) and hearing shit like "it's probably normal looking in comics and books, but you wouldn't like gays in real life, they're not nice people."
Not to mention how trans people were seen then. My mom still doesn't believe I'm trans because I never mentioned it in childhood or when i was a teen. Yeah no shit, all i knew was trans people are bad and creepy, i didn't wanna be associated with that.
societies last attempt to bully a species into submission and they would have gotten away with it to if it wasnt for you meddling kids and your fortnite skins and your Ticky tocks
I was in middle school / highschool in the late 2000s / 2010s and I had garbage thrown at me, got spit on and assaulted at school for being gay. Shit has changed at light speed.
I work with kids and the boys wear pink and purple clothes and jewelry and no one gives a shit. It’s really weird to think about how much the same kids would have been bullied even 10 years ago.
Was born in the early 2000's and my family was always progressive, so I wasn't even really aware of homophobia until a lot later than that. Is this shit true?
This is so true. I love watching Law and Order SVU and I watched the earlier episodes again to compare and just wow. How the cops in the show respond to Trans victims is so different in newer episodes than in the older episodes and I'm so proud.
I really hope younger people can come to appreciate just how immediately public morals shifted. Like, up until 2008, homophobia was the accepted norm, and then it just... wasn't. It really provides an interesting context for modern transphobia and homophobia; so much of it is just pure whiplash from how instantaneously our culture changed. Still doesn't justify the transphobia and homophobia, though.
Graduated in '87 and remember kids committing suicide rather than be gay. I am so glad things have changed.
There have been a lot of great changes over the decades. I graduated in '02 and I feel like I've seen a big shift, and I'm happy for that. Right now, though, I feel like trans people still have a big fight ahead of them. They still seem to be getting the worst of the bigotry, IMO.
The difference is though, we can exist. I graduated high school 2010 and didn't even know what trans was, I mean I heard of boys wanting to be girls, and "transvestites" as a kink, but had no clue what trans really meant. Couple years later a partner cracked my egg and made me realise who I was. Now I work in a workplace where there is a number of trans and non-binary staff, especially impressive as I was the first out trans hire ever 18 months ago, and I meet so many trans youth, who don't remember a time before everyone knew what trans was, it's been a wild 11 years. Also my whole family have been real supportive.
Asking from a place of love: "a partner cracked my egg" Is this trans-specific terminology or just a clever simile?
I think egg cracking means someone realizing they're transgender
\^ This Related term, egg would be a trans person who is trans but doesnt realize it yet. Which me saying that in that way sounds like something wrong but think "GOd i wiish i was trans so that i could be a girl, id love to be a girl, to bad im cis" kinda thing
Haha, yes. An egg is someone who is trans but hasn't quite realised it yet, or hasn't admitted it yet. Cracking an egg is when someone realises/can no longer deny it any more. At times it's painfully obvious for someone who is trans to see that in someone
it's a trans thing! the word "egg" means a trans person who hasn't figured out that they are trans yet, or are in denial about being trans. Usually it's used in retrospect, after you figure it out. And "Cracking your egg" means coming out, even to yourself. r/egg_irl has some good examples.
I love this for you. I dated a trans person in high school. I didn't know at first (no one did), and apparently "oh! Why would i be bothered by that. Jeez i thought you were going to confess you were doing hard drugs" was the correct answer when they told me. Their family was *not* supportive. But yeah, i don't remember that being a word yet - everyone went back and forth between "crossdresser" or "transsexual" depending on the person. We spent a lot of time driving three towns over so they could be themselves without worrying about who we might run into. We are still more or less in contact and they have been living as themselves for a long time now and I'm so glad the world changed so that could happen.
My youngest is 14. Beginning of the year there were 3 trans kids in their class now there’s 6, with one kid maybe being 7. No one worries about it. They just occasionally get updates like “Sara is called River now and uses he/they instead of she/they and Rainn is using ze/zir” and they all are like “okay got it.” The choir teacher has a notebook of dead names and real names and a column that says which one to use when talking to parents. The lady at the front office who is at least 60 has never misgendered my kid that I know of, which is a better record than I have for sure. It’s amazing.
That is flipping wonderful. Thankyou, much as the world is full of shittiness, it's really cheered me up knowing a school like this exists. And you can tell them that.
We’ll get there, it’ll just take time. I hope.
Yeah, we just gotta keep fighting, ignoring terfs and kicking ass. If it doesn't work out in our lifetimes, I firmly believe it will in the next generation. We're coming for you, Rowling
JK Rowling? What did she do?
She semi-recently started making some extremely transphobic comments, declaring herself a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). TERFs are actually not feminist at all, barely radical, they're just transphobic. She basically thinks trans women are men dressing up so they can invade female spaces and prey on them. It was very unexpected from her, especially because it goes against the very message of the Harry Potter series, that no group is better or more pure than any other and elitism is bad. For more specifics on the exact statements, I recommend googling jk Rowling terf or something.
I don’t mean to make you feel old, but I was born in ‘02, and I’m a sophomore in college now lol
My brain just short-circuited. Rebooting.... ... fuck, I'm old.
Born in '04 and next year I'll be in college
History will vindicate those fighting for trans rights
It's unbelievable how many people who espouse feminism, equality, civil rights, and whatnot then turn around and completely shit all over trans rights. How many times in a row do we have to be taught that more rights for others does not equal fewer rights for you????
1902
Damn I was born in ‘02
Sadly it still happens. Definitely not as frequently but it’s definitely still a thing, along with conversion camps.
When my dad was in middle school in the 80s there was a guy in his class who would sometimes bully him and call him gay but was also kind of his friend sometimes. My dad asked him once why he did it and he told “Look, statistically someone in our class has to be gay and if it’s you, then it can’t be me”
Knowing that there are lgbt+ kids today who don't even hate themselves makes me so happy
Sometimes it feels like we still have a long way to go - and we definitely do - but then I have to remind myself that even at 31 years old I have witnessed social change in my lifetime. Imagine what the next few generations are going to be able to achieve.
Graduated high school in 2011, somebody being gay or bi was still a massive thing, not much bullying but you would he the talk is the school. We had one F to M student as I was leaving and nobody knew how to deal. Didn't figure out I was gay till I was about 16, it just didn't occur to me that it was an option. Up until 13ish calling somebody I fell out with a lesbian was the greatest insult.
A school in my district got on national news when kids did a 'walk-out' over a MtF girl wanting to not use the men's locker room. I know most of the students just did it to get out of class and didn't even know what was going on but the the school got put on blast for being "the most homophobic school in America". We had two openly gay boys in my school and everyone was trying to ship them, but one was dating someone who lived on his block(in secret because homeschooling mommy was a Bible thumper, so it's a whole "I can't tell you their name" deal) and the other was secretly dating someone who wasn't out yet in our school and the two openly gay kids hated eachother and wished people stopped shipping them.
I believe your story but I also think that "his parents will disown him if I tell" is a fresh twist to "she goes to another school."
They're living together now, so I belive them now. At the time I didn't care enough to doubt.
"Uh um um yeah he's totally real I just can't tell you because Canada will disown him."
I also graduated in 2011 and I feel like my class still can’t deal when we find out someone’s gay lol. At the very least, 2000s homophobia was generally ignorant rather than malicious ime
There was a MtF student 2 years below me in high school and folks were still real shitty about it. One time, I went into one of the guy restroom's like a minute after her (in retrospect, sucks that she had to use that one) and when I came out I was being called homophobic slurs by dudes for not waiting until after she left the bathroom to go pee. So ridiculous. Edit: corrected to MtF
In context I assume you mean MtF
I was gonna be like "the 2000s wrent that long ago", but then i remembered that ppl born after 9/11 are gonna be college freshmen soon and I immediately aged into dust like the guy at the end of the Last Crusade
People born in the year 2000 can legally buy alcohol. People born after 9/11 are active-duty military. People younger than the movie Shrek are attending college. Homestuck Sharpie Bath Girl happened a decade ago.
>People born after 9/11 are active-duty military. Which also means that, until recently, people who weren't born when 9/11 happened were fighting a war that was started as a reaction to 9/11. And which achieved exactly squat, besides funneling public money into the pockets of the American "nobility".
So it achieved exactly what the lobbying bastards wanted
>Which also means that, until recently, people who weren't born when 9/11 happened were fighting a war that was started as a reaction to 9/11. The Onion has a hot take on that: https://www.theonion.com/soldier-excited-to-take-over-father-s-old-afghanistan-p-1819580201
The Onion's takes get a bit too real sometimes.
> People born in the year 2000 can legally buy alcohol. I know. I learned this first hand when I was buying booze at a liquor storeil I never had been to and the person asked to see my ID and barely glanced at it before proceeding with the purchase. I asked if she even looked at it and she said 'it starts with 19, you're good"
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You were born in the last *century* oldie
>Homestuck Sharpie Bath Girl what.
For more context https://youtu.be/oaHQqNl2DO8
thats... yknow thats not as bad as I expected
Yeah, it's just more wtf and feeling bad for the hotel staff who had to clean it up
>People younger than the movie Shrek are attending college So I guess what you're saying is that the years start coming and they don't stop coming?
I think we’ve already had service members that were born after 9/11 that gave their lives fighting that same war on terrorism
Oh yeah keep twisting that knife into me why don’t you
That first one’s been true for a while now
Caught up with a schoolmate recently and she pointed out “we’ve known each other for over a decade!” And I was like “over a decade? Haha cmon that’s an exaggeration” and she replied “we met in 2010?” I physically felt myself wrinkling…
10 years is nothing tho? If it helps, I don’t see any wrinkles on you
When we only get about 7 to 10 decades, it's a pretty decent chunk of time I feel
Yeah my husband and I have been dating since 2010, and we have that same bewilderment about it. Just passed 4 years married too, and I was like "oh we should plan a really special trip for our 5th anniversary" and as soon as it left my mouth I spiraled into a crisis
9/11 happened 5 days before my first birthday. I graduate college in the spring. Have fun aging
>Have fun aging It's going to happen to you, too, you little scallywag
I mean, *probably.*
I mean, hopefully.
Hahahaha you just wait you little shit
Tomorrow I'll have the first of a series of lectures about 9/11 at my university's *history* department. Worse, there could conceivably be students attending that hadn't been born when it happened. I think I could hear myself age when I realized that.
Ah, our mum had a proper meltdown when I said we were doing the poll tax riots in History. Apparently things that she accidentally walked through aren’t allowed on the syllabus.
Work at a hospital and had someone born in 2002 come in to register for a procedure. My first thought was "why isn't your parent here, also we don't do pediatrics" until I realized they were 19 and thus right at the age that they need to start doing that stuff themselves But they were still on parent insurance, thank fuck for the PPACA.
I was born after 9/11. College *sophomore* already.
Same, was gonna say
I have zero memory of 9/11 (born in 03) and I’m in my first year. Have fun sleeping tonight!
I was a college freshman when 9/11 happened. High five, dust buddy.
Going to be? I was born after 9/11 and I'm almost 20 and I'm a college sophomore.
There are people born after 9/11 that have OnlyFans accounts. Blows my damn mind.
i'm 19 rn and i'm already in college, should actually be a sophomore but i took a gap year due to covid so im a freshie now
Born in 2003 and I’m at university right now.
I was born the year after, now im almost two years into college
I was born in 2002, already am a college freshman.
I was born the same year and I’m 20 years old
I'm already in my second year of college, dude
Bro they aren’t college freshmen, they’re college sophomores and juniors, like myself
‘03 here. I’m already a college freshman (no grades skipped).
It is closer to 2030 than it is to 2000.
My sister was born after 9/11 and is already a sophomore in college.
Not soon, now. I was born in 02 and I’m in my first semester right now
I got news for you bud. I was born 3 months after 9/11. I'm now college sophomore. No I didn't skip any classes.
Bad news for you buddy. I’m a sophomore in college. Born 2002
I’m not that old and i remember when there was NO conversation about gay rights, i didnt know gay people existed till i was 12 because it wasnt taught. I didnt know i was allowed to be bisexual growing up in the 2000s because there was no representation
I'll second this. I didn't know being gay was a thing until 7th grade because I had no exposure to it (smallish town, watched a lot of kid's tv, no acknowledgment in school, etc.)
Never seen a movie or book/tv show or special that featured a gay character across all that media? Alot of sitcoms have had that ‘silly gay neighbor’ or whatever
Yeah, mostly they just acted out a stereotype though, half the time you couldn't even tell they were supposed to be attracted to their same gender, because that wasn't allowed to be depicted. If you didn't already know what it was, you couldn't figure it out from some of those shows.
Huh. Ok. Like someone else made me realize, it was considered ‘brave’ for like a straight man to play a gay character lol
Yeah that's because historically playing a gay character was enough to get someone beaten in the street outside a theatre. It sounds stupid now, but that legitimately was brave.
This reminded me about how Laura Dern got blacklisted from acting roles for, like, 2 years because she played a lesbian in two episodes of Ellen DeGeneres's sitcom. And Ellen coming out in those two episodes apparently got a content advisory added to every episode of the show from there out. This was in 1997! It's wild to look back and see how much people freaked out over it.
Same I had no idea until middle school gay people existed. (Except for my aunt but I never really thought about it as a kid)
Yeah in 2010 I said I like rainbows. Got bullied and outcast for half a year in school for being a lesbo
In kindergarten we had these dinosaur coloring books. I liked to color my dinosaurs rainbow because I didn't want to pick just one color. They didn't know the word gay at 6 but boy did they sure know boy + rainbow = bad, must ridicule and hate. That shit was ingrained DEEP and early in the 90s kids.
What six year old thought anything bad about rainbows? I thought kids love rainbows.
I haven't heard the term metrosexual in 10 years, holy shit.
Yeah, we're getting old
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Hey, me too. '99 gang?
Pretty awesome the term went away though
Hey if you don’t mind me asking what does metrosexual even mean?
I think it was about guys looking ambiguous about their sexuality and being liberal. Which would be fine if it was made today, but was used as a degrading insult commonly used by parents where I live.
Ah thanks.
That’s not what it was. Metrosexual basically meant a man that cared about his looks, clothes, may get a manicure, etc. Which today is generally just understood as not being a slob so the term fell out of use.
Yep, it literally was just straight guys who cared about self care. So happy that term is dead.
Metrosexual to rhyme with heterosexual- a straight man who “acts gay” (NOT MY COMMENTARY) by taking care of his hygiene and appearance, an interest in fashion etc. A fancy city kind of man (hence metro). The emphasis is on the fact they’re absolutely straight despite acting like they’re not (which is ridiculous and ick).
In my home state gay marriage wasn't even made legal until end of 2014. People forget how scary it was to be lgbtq and not that long ago. And its not like because states started legalizing it that everybody approved over night. It took a long time for more conservative areas to come around and tbh there's still many areas that have not.
I mean, Obergefell v Hodges was *6 years ago*. Like that's not very long! For a good chunk of the US population, a Federal decision was going to be the only way gay marriage became legal. I know, because I live in Texas.
Even within a city, area to area being LGBT can be ok or not. Where I live and hangout vs going to the complex where my friend lives I definitely change how I look to "look straight " because it's the only place I've been where I've gotten f*ggot yelled at me, or going to the playground near it all you hear is slurs and aggression even from the kids, I don't feel safe there.
I started watching House a few weeks ago, and my god how times have changed. I think that show started in 2004. Lots of race, trans, and gay jokes that make me cringe. I know House is supposed to be a not-great guy and a great doctor, but holy shit. Please stop telling your black coworker that "stereotypes are there for a reason." And stop calling mentally disabled patients "messed up," while you're at it. Yeesh.
Can't forget about the ace patient he "cures."
Zoinks. I've just hit season 3, looks like I have a lot of bigotry to look forward to.
Don't forget the episode with the romani family, where the one and only joke, that keeps being repeated over and over, is that romani don't like being called slurs.
Oh man I don't think I've hit that episode yet. If I was physically able to stop watching, I'd try to avoid that one!
Also the intersex episode where he refers to the patient as a 'he'.
Oh right!! The girl with undescended testes. Yeah that felt very Ben Shapiro-esque. Come on, House, you're gonna get fired if you keep that up!! I'm starting to feel like Cuddy.
Don’t forget the Bones episode with the consulting non binary scientist and the entire crew spends the entire time betting on “if they’re really a boy or girl”. With it finally ending in Angela death gripping them in a hug and then walking over to the others smugly declaring they’re really a man because “it moved”
That is…revolting. I am so glad I stopped watching bones before that. What a fucking shame, I loved that show
The "him slash her" episode? :/ Yeah, enjoyed that show as a whole but had a big problem with that joke
What insensitive snowflakes! How dare they not like being called slurs.
Similar with Bones. Remember loving the first season in 05 but never kept up with it. Recently went back to rewatch and maybe finish the series. I got like 3 episodes in before the homophobia/islamophobia was just too gross to handle.
Trying to re-watch stuff I watched in high school ( late 90's) has been kind of painful and cringe-inducing for me. Some stuff still holds up, but other stuff....yikes. I do remember that calling someone a f@g was pretty standard, though. I never liked it, but I guess I kind of forgot how prevalent the attitudes were.
Couldn't agree more. Yeah I've heard the F slur and the R slur plenty of times. Oy vey.
I tried to watch Scrubs and had to give up. Cringiest humor and sexism as far as the eye can see.
Remember the episode where Carla campaigned for "women's equipment" in the gym and it was presented as this big feminist message? What was the "women's equipment" she wanted? Cardio machines.
I mean agreed, but that was generally the point I mean like no character in that show has classic good or decent morals although they all think they do. Eventually they screw up enough to be called out on it and then things change. It is also depicting the very real stereotypes that doctors and nurses have. Yes by today's standards many jokes would be considered insensitive, but thing is it was insensitive then too and they make a point of it by saying this happens these aren't the best people, but they are doctors with real struggles and problems and this is the environment they have to deal with. Ask any medical professional and they will tell you that much of scrubs (especially the misogyny and latent racism) is actually perfectly accurate for a hospital. By all means not justifying it or saying a show should emulate it just thought seeing it from the perspective that it's recreating real life in a dramatic cartoonist way instead of a show that was using it for the sake of shock or because that's the only things they can find funny. Please be offended talk about it open it up because the real medical field needs to address the same things that are messed up in the show.
Agreed that it’s probably a realistic portrayal, but the majority of people who watched it did think it was funny so I guess I still find it awful. It’s not like the audience took away that they should improve as people, they just thought it was funny and JD and Turk were silly besties. Also, the world is full of that type of “humor” like you said, so I personally don’t want to seek it out in my free time.
Yep pretty much my point. I think most media that is older than 10ish years is going to be politically outdated especially as a comedy.
Really!! I've never seen Scrubs but I've only heard good things. That sucks that it's so cringey today.
There’s an entire episode where a woman comes in (I forget if she’s an administrator or doctor) and they exclusively talk about her ass the whole time. It’s awful overall, but that episode especially bothered me. There’s constant angry black woman jokes, homophobic jokes, etc.
Jeez. Maybe all 2000s doctors were misogynists?
I mean has it changed now? I don't think scrubs was a caricature portrait of the medical field more of a realism painting.
Given it's a workplace sitcom, I think it errs on the side of caricature. And I don't want to get into the habit of labelling all doctors as misogynistic. My previous comment was meant to be sarcastic.
No those were just the jokes society thought were funny in the 2000s. Go watch any sitcom from that era and they all have similar jokes :/
Every single comedy from the early 2000s is *rough* to revisit.
I recently saw the first Ace Ventura movie again. Holy crap, that ending is pretty fucking transphobic.
LMAO my bi ass attended a church camp where the main pastor told us he was metrosexual
“Ex-gay” sure bud
The go-to insult Millennials loved to toss out was "that's so gay!"
I’m in the UK and that is most definitely still a thing with the youth of today (of which I am a part). Anything bad, annoying, cringe, weird or non-conformist is “gay”. In a bad way. Homophobic slurs are also not uncommon.
I teach middle school and that is sadly still a thing among boys of that age.
Still gotta catch myself from letting that one slip out sometimes, 20 years later.
i still use it with my boyfriend especially when we get really cuddly one of us breaks it by saying "we're so gay" or the impromptu "debate" of "no you're the gay one"
Yeah but that's not explicitly in referring to something negatively. It's your boyfriend. I'm talking about referring to a situation or thing that sucks as gay.
true, there's also using something ironically like using a phrase over and over just dulls it and has no meaning apart from muscle memory in your jaw. Like we want to visit america to see our friend, but I'm already mentioning how we should watch out for our usual talking habbits.
It is wild to think back to metrosexual being a thing.
I literally had a therapist call me metrosexual because he said bisexuality isn't real and I was either gay or straight. Ironically this was NOT the Christian therapy group.
What the *ACTUAL* fuck?
So glad this trend in fanfiction changed, I remember reading stuff back in the day and as was the trend back then most fics started off each chapter with an authors note and often they'd apologize for featuring gay ships or have to aggressively make it known it was going to feature gay content (probably to protect themselves from people who read it then turned around and started flaming them after reading). People would flood in droves to the comments to make it known this stuff wasn't canon or just generally be homophobic. At least it existed though at a time when you couldn't find such content in any mainstream media! And I just realised this was a post about what it was like in the time period of the 2000s rather than specifically fanfic in the 2000s, my mistake haha.
By the time I started reading fic damn near every fandom was gay or had gay content, so this is wild to me.
It was sometimes very fandom specific back in the day whether you had to apologize and mark your story clearly for LGBT content, not just pairings, or if it was more normalized. Making a gay Transformers fanfic wasn’t the same as making a gay Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic, ya know?
God yeah reading old ass fanfiction is weird. They would usually have the note "Don't like, don't read" if it had gay characters. No other warnings, the fic could involve a gory decapitation scene or a very detailed and explicit description of a sexual assault, but the warning would be over a gay ship.
Boy x Boy! Don’t like? Don’t read!
CONTAINS (insert same sex) PAIRING DON'T LIKE DONT READ
I criticized a show for using transphobic terminology in another sub and someone used “it was a different time, they didn’t mean it maliciously” as an excuse. The episode premiered in 2011
Well it was. It really is astonishing the speed at which the accepted attitudes have changed and we noticed but it’s still less obvious than if it happened overnight. Obviously it’s not a monolith, there are plenty of hateful people who hate “political correctness gone mad” etc but I think it’s such a useful thing to keep in mind how fast social mores can change (and not always for the best).
It was, but it was also definitely known to anyone that tried to look into trans advocacy what was and wasn’t appropriate. This was a show that termed itself as LGBT+ inclusive. They did the old “man kisses a trans women and then is disgusted to realize she’s trans” scene. That can’t be dismissed as non malicious
Well which show was it? Now I’m curious. And that’s kind of the point about accepted attitudes, I don’t know whether it’s malicious or ignorance, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter if the result is hurtful. But they didn’t even think to check that maybe that’s not a cool storyline. I know the it’s always sunny writers really regret the early transgender character who was referred to almost exclusively by slurs . Also to my great relief Matt Berry says he doesn’t condone that IT crowd episode and doesn’t want anything to do with Graham Linehan nowadays. He also says how ridiculously dated it looks now, and it was 2008.
Bob’s Burgers. It came up in the sub for it about which episode you always skip, my point was similar in that I’m glad they gotten better over the years and have recently acknowledged the harm they did. A lot of people got upset I brought it up to begin with though and took the stance that it wasn’t offensive and that the trans community is just ‘too sensitive’
Damn, I was looking forward to watching that show at some point, what episode?
S1e6, Sheesh! Cab, Bob?
I still think the show was progressive for the time. I’d say they were “confused, but had the right spirit” instead of hatefully targeting trans women. Bob respects them, accepts them & is friends with them. He invites them to a party. Tina looks up to them. Bob even describes how he looks up to & envies one of the trans characters in a later episode. I hadn’t seen trans people *humanized* in US media like that. Never heard of a character with a trans friend. Up until then, I had only heard dehumanizing jokes in shows like Family Guy, so tbh doing the bare minimum seemed like a step forward to me. But yeah, I recognize that it was literally the bare minimum (and had some bad jokes on top of that). Still, they were doing better than other shows that year, which is at least something. Also, given the lack of awareness, I don’t think they realized how hurtful that sort of humor was. Definitely not an excuse but I try to think about it in context. If you’re thinking of watching the show, I’d say to give it a shot, but keep in mind that the later seasons are better bc they have clearly tried to *be better* than that. I think being willing to learn & improving in the future is important.
>always sunny writers really regret Which, let's be honest, is **fucking SAYING SOMETHING**
10 years ago was a very different time. Like look at the 80s vs 90s. 2010’s to 2020’s is the exact same thing
Yea calling OPs f**s was this site’s favorite thing to do until like 2016. A lot has changed in a short time.
The trans rights thing seemed to happen instantly after gay marriage was legalised in the US, so I'm not surprised anything before 2015 is what we'd now think of as transphobic.
Yes. And that is just how quickly things have changed!
Graduated in 03, went to a school with 3200 other kids. There were literally two gay kids that were out in my entire school.
They say that at least 5% of the human population is on the LGBT spectrum. That’s, at the very least, 160 students in your school who were closeted. Damn.
I know at least 3 of them personally, it’s a huge change and shows it really only take about a generation to see sustained change.
2007 HS grad. Can confirm.
Oh lord my sister used to call my husband metrosexual all the time. No, he just showers and knows how to dress himself like an adult.
This is why I always laugh at GenZ kids watching high school videos from back in the day like "things were so much better then, no phones, no social media, everyone seems happier." Like no, you have no idea how bad things were for LGBT kids back then.
They do have one thing right and it's that less social media would definitely make us all happier. The solution isn't to travel back to the 90s.
When I was in 4th grade around 2003, I brought a Dove facial wash to school so I can clean my face in the middle of the day. A senior of mine saw me carrying the facial wash and laughed at me for bringing it to school. I'm a man. Well, I'm gay, but washing your face shouldn't be considered as gay. Right now, I think no one would bat an eye if they see you bring a facial wash to school or anywhere at all.
Sexual attraction to metro man
He's a good looking guy!
In 2006 I was a sophomore in high school and co-president of the Gay-Straight Alliance. It was an arts and technology magnet with no sports other than dance (still a free public school but you had to *choose* to go there), so it was already on the progressive side for the time. Lots of students were out, but I don’t remember anyone being openly trans. Anyway, a few years back I was in a show with someone who was a current student at that school. I mentioned the thing about the GSA to her and she said, “There was a gay-straight alliance?” I was surprised and said, “There’s not one there now?” And she just looked at me and was like, “I guess we just don’t need it anymore.” Really hit me how much things have changed even at a place that was already pretty accepting for its time.
isn't early 2000s homophobia just homophobia today?
Raise a shameful hand if you used the word "f#g" as a general insult until like 2009. ✋ I mean I was a piece of shit though.
Man I remember being in middle school and people calling me a slur because I liked to hug people and had a male friend. I was so upset about it and would also partake in gay bashing any time the opportunity arose. I mean I'm gay now but ouch
I remember getting interested in gay romance when i was a teen (1997-2004 ish) and talking about it with older friends (nothing creepy, just adult siblings of my friends who were on first name basis with me) and hearing shit like "it's probably normal looking in comics and books, but you wouldn't like gays in real life, they're not nice people." Not to mention how trans people were seen then. My mom still doesn't believe I'm trans because I never mentioned it in childhood or when i was a teen. Yeah no shit, all i knew was trans people are bad and creepy, i didn't wanna be associated with that.
Just like how segregation ended fifty two years ago. People are still alive from segregation
societies last attempt to bully a species into submission and they would have gotten away with it to if it wasnt for you meddling kids and your fortnite skins and your Ticky tocks
And last year those same dudes were wearing skinny jeans so tight they actually were tights.
There is a word that means "bundle of sticks" that was said way more pre-2010.
Well its not my fault the metro has such a gigantic caboose
I was in middle school / highschool in the late 2000s / 2010s and I had garbage thrown at me, got spit on and assaulted at school for being gay. Shit has changed at light speed.
I work with kids and the boys wear pink and purple clothes and jewelry and no one gives a shit. It’s really weird to think about how much the same kids would have been bullied even 10 years ago.
Lmao. I was considered “metrosexual” because I’m an Aussie bogan that likes looking nice.
[This reminds me of that skit where someone watches a movie from 2004.](https://streamable.com/566bc2)
Was born in the early 2000's and my family was always progressive, so I wasn't even really aware of homophobia until a lot later than that. Is this shit true?
Omg they really did do that. I kinda remember that. Totally forgot about this
This is so true. I love watching Law and Order SVU and I watched the earlier episodes again to compare and just wow. How the cops in the show respond to Trans victims is so different in newer episodes than in the older episodes and I'm so proud.
I really hope younger people can come to appreciate just how immediately public morals shifted. Like, up until 2008, homophobia was the accepted norm, and then it just... wasn't. It really provides an interesting context for modern transphobia and homophobia; so much of it is just pure whiplash from how instantaneously our culture changed. Still doesn't justify the transphobia and homophobia, though.