A team from the University of Alberta has launched a new website in hopes of targeting the use of what they call 'casual homophobic slurs' on social media.
The University's Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (iSMSS) launched its No Homophobes website Wednesday morning, in hopes of ending casual homophobic slurs like 'no homo', 'faggot' and 'so gay'.
"This started because we were concerned about how frequently homophobic language is being tossed around in society," explained Dr. Kristopher Wells, Assistant Professor and Associate Director with iSMSS
The site tracks how often certain slurs are being used on twitter, everyday.
"They are some of the ugliest words, forever linked with our ugliest histories," said Wells adding, "Why do we continue to use words like 'faggot', or 'dyke' and phrases like 'that's gay'. Why do they continue to persist and even grown in our society?"
He believes that rather than trying to phase these words out, people are becoming desensitized to them. Wells says since July 5th, the word 'faggot' has been tweeted 2.4 million times worldwide.
"What impact does that have to that teenager who's seeing this on their screen, who's hearing this in their classroom, who's hearing this language even come from their parents around the dinner table? What possibility do they have for their future?" explained Wells.
Highschool student, Kiana Chouinard, runs the gay-straight student alliance at her school. She says a lot of teachers don't do anything to combat this language in schools, which sends a message that it is okay to discriminate.
"Bullying is not just a ride of passage and it can't be dismissed," said Chouinard adding, "We're here for all the kids that are too afraid to speak up. We're here for all the kids that have nobody to support them, and we're here for the kids who can't be here today."
Wells and Chouinard both agree that people need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words, whether they mean them in a hurtful way or not.
"It's a really big reflection on social media. People just tweet and they don't think about it. It's just 'oh well, it's out there it's done now' but, that can have really long lasting effects and people don't realize that," said Chouinard.
"We need to choose our words wisely because, your parents used to tell you that sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt you, that's wrong. Words do hurt," Wells said adding, "This language is ubiquitous, it's everywhere, it's hurtful, it's damaging and in some cases it's causing young people to take their own lives, and that needs to stop."
Wells says almost every second of every day, somewhere in the twittersphere, someone is using homophobic language.
"You may not think that they have any meaning but, when you go to this website and you see how they're being used, it's clear that they're being used in negative and hurtful ways the vast majority of the time," Wells explained adding, "The word faggot isn't used in too many positive connotations in our society."
The team is encouraging people on twitter to use the hashtag #nohomophobes to combat homophobic slurs.
"It's a simple way to send a message that you don't support that language. That's all you need to say, you don't need to say anything else," said Wells.
With files from Su-Ling Goh.
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