Dear Snowboarding: Stop Using the Word Gay as an Insult
Last week, pro skier Gus Kentworthy came out to ESPN. Overall, the response has been great and supportive, Kenworthy told the Wall Street Journal. “I’ve had a ton of people reach out to me, which has been amazing. I’ve had other athletes in my sport, Bobby Brown, Josh Christensen, Tom Wallisch, I’ve had snowboarders..” Unfortunately, one snowboarder, who’s legendary status raises his voice louder than the others, took to twitter with a poorly-worded joke.
This tweet has brought a firestorm of unwanted attention upon Terje, who just doesn’t seem to understand what the big deal is. “Every time someone shockingly “admits” to be gay he pins under “abnormality.” For me sexuality is insignificant,” Terje went on to tweet after receiving blowback on social media.
Terje is right in some ways – your sexuality doesn’t and shouldn’t matter when it comes to your skiing or snowboarding. But after the triple corking is done, Gus and every other athlete lives in the real world. In the real world homophobia still runs rampant, words and thoughtless jokes hurt, which is one of the things Gus opens up about in the article. Since Terje probably didn’t even read it, here’s the actual excerpt that explains it:
Kenworthy has watched carefully these past few years as the world around him has grown more accepting. Gay marriage is legal now, attitudes are changing. He was excited this spring when Caitlyn Jenner came out. He believes that people are more aware.
“But then at the same time,” he says, “people are literally oblivious.”
For him, there have existed day-to-day reminders. Take, for instance, the former sponsor who made a crude anti-gay remark about why Kenworthy was once late to a competition. Take his physical therapist, who once told Kenworthy that he couldn’t even imagine talking to a gay guy all night. (“I thought, ‘You’ve talked to a gay guy for two hours a day, four days a week for seven months.’ “)
Take the constant drumbeat of living in a culture that uses the words “gay” and “fag” as commonly as “stoked.” A daily check of social media for Kenworthy means encountering posts written by friends or peers who, without knowing it, reveal what they think about his sexuality. Today, it might be a Facebook rant or an Instagram post from a pro snowboarder who’s annoyed that “skier fags” have infiltrated another contest or complaining that a shoddy halfpipe is “gay.” Tomorrow, it might be a tweet written by an athlete he admires who is “sickened” by same-sex marriage.
“There’s a lot of testosterone in our sport, and those derogatory words get thrown around like crazy,” says Canadian freeskier Justin Dorey. “A lot of people don’t think twice about it because those words don’t mean anything to them.”
In 2015, where news travels at the speed of the Internet and you’re constantly inundated with new information, its easy for the non-affected to shrug and say, big fucking deal. But this is a big fucking deal, and it’s time for snowboarding and all action sports to remove homophobic slurs from our lexicon entirely. Terje made himself look like a moron and deserves every bit of media scrutiny he did and will receive. Todd Richards, who had a front row seat for the shitshow thanks to a seemingly out of nowhere mention in the tweet, said the whole situation is a case of stupidity.
“100 percent of comedy is timing, and if you’re going to diss someone in English, at least use spell check. Utmost respect for Gus’s courage in a close-minded world.”
I think it’s so odd how Yobeat/Snowboards take this ultra PC stance, the same thing happened when Burtongate came out. People were upset that they sold “weed paraphernalia” and the CEO said a cuss word in her email. Like Snowboarding was ever about not offending people or being controversial…
cuz skiing is cool bro
yeah rips asshole
nobodies cared about someone being a faggot for like 8 years or some shit. get over it
It is a Transworld we live in.
I agree with Terje. I don’t care or want to hear about who you fuck. Gay or Strait.
if you think ‘pls stop saying gay and faggot’ is “ultra-pc” i don’t know what to tell you
oh wait, I do. snowboarding was not rooted in “offending people” or “being controversial,” it was strongly anti-establishment (I know that’s a lot of syllables but bear with me) due to years of being subjugated by the ski industry, specifically resorts. snowboarding was a grand unifier for a lot of society’s outcasts- now some of those ‘outcasts’ have no problem doing the same exact thing that was done to them but to different groups of people. grow up.
again; this sounds like a great thing to say when you’re not on the shit end of the stick. ‘imagine if nobody needed to come out of the closet’ is a variation of when white people say inane shit like ‘oh i don’t see people in color ^_^’
specifically it is a refusal to acknowledge the problems and issues one is still facing in 2015 by being part of a marginalized group. it’s easy to reduce the importance of someone coming out when you’ve never dealt with the struggle of potentially being ostracized by your family, friends, community, and beyond just.for.being.yourself. coming out is still “a thing” primarily because of reactions like the ones found in this very comment feed.
i know a lot of people are thinking ‘hmm, ski man is gay. who cares. get this off my feed. also skiing is gay lol’ if you don’t care that’s fine, close the tab and keep it moving. there are a lot of people out there, gay, straight, skier, snowboarder, whatever, who DO care about issues like this. slowly our society is starting to realize that treating subsets of our communities like dogshit Isn’t That Cool™ and they’re committing to do their part and change their ingrained habits. it’d be nice if some of y’all would spend two goddamn seconds to think critically on what we’re talking about and do the same.
True that.
Guilty as charged x2, but smarter now.
Terje is a solid individual. People make mistakes. This just opens up discussion on the topic and shouldn’t be viewed as a Terje is bad thing. The real question here is can we evolve vs. devolve.
I alienated one of my good friends/best snowboarder I spend significant time with about 10 years ago. He stayed in the closet and I guarantee he felt uncomfortable every time I used the word “gay” to describe a negative.
It’s not a PC issue, it’s a insult plain and simple. Being a douche bag around my friend is big regret in my life, hopefully others can avoid that regret by exposing the issue for what it is.
Good job Yo Beat for calling it what it is.
ha ha.. nature has decided that trolls like you will hide in the dark corners and spout off shit like this on the internet, but hide those colors when exposed for real.
Take the hood off fucker, stand up and expose who you really are. Guaranteed that you are a kook.
A) Terje’s partner is probably not gay if they are dating Terje now. I’m not going to speculate on their sexual preferences but gay typically denotes attraction only to one sex/gender, the one which you inhabit as well.
B) Homophobia does not have to involve hatred of gays/queers. It can involve aversion, implicit or latent feelings of superiority, etc.
C) Even if it is ‘nuanced’ to distinguish between two different modes of homophobia, do you really think you’re in a position to make the call that Terje’s comments are mild?
yes terje!
the last opinion I would take seriously is one coming from HONDO hahah
people make fun of Shaun’s personal life the most 🙂
these “snowboarders” you speak of are most likely d bags in other aspects of their life so stop labeling.
Obviously not understanding what I’m trying to say. Not the same as someone saying they don’t see color, at all. Altho hey, maybe from living in a major city and working in an profession where most dudes are gay, I don’t even “see gay”. However, I’m not going to debate it this shit on yobeat. Let’s leave this to Facebook so the redneck kid from high school can comment a picture of eagle with a gun it’s mouth. MURICA.
Hear it from the guy himself:
http://www.snowboarder.com/featured/socially-awkward-terje-haakonsen-addresses-tweet-heard-round-action-sports-world/#i2XwqTKB56QKgc83.97
Keep in mind that he’s from a country where coming out as gay is just less of a big deal. “Skiers are gay” is still a dumb comment, especially from someone in his position.
Terry shut the fuck up, you or anyone else hear who thinks they are an activist and wants to stick up for rights needs to realize how insignificant you are, no matter how much shit you spew nothing is going to change, maybe in 100 years it will but what you have to say will make no fucking difference
i realize a lot of ‘discussion’ is lost in the ether of conversing online and i’m sure that you and i are probably a hell of a lot closer on the issue than these comments may make us out to be. we have the same goals, just notably different ideas on how we achieve em. you a good dude.
the rest of yall bigoted bastards can fuck right off tho
gotta be a cold world out there when you see yourself as insignificant as that. ive seen drastic change in myself, others, and society as a whole during my life and that gives me hope that it aint done yet. sorry you havent had the same experience.
i cant even begin to tell you how wrong you are seeing as im gay and its actually extremely offensive.
Great post.
Would be cool if some of these chuds took it to heart.
Instead they’ll just piss and moan about how the world is “too PC” these days because they are jocks at heart and hate the idea of not picking on someone because they are different.
All these comments coming from assholes who were calling each other gay last week! Since I can remember Yobeat is famous for making fun of people for anything possible! Talk about double standard! Ya’ll need to grow some balls and figure out where you really stand! Either hate everybody equally or stop hating all together! That simple!
Whole Squad Gay!
Lots of dumb shits all over failed to get the meaning of a legendary french poetry loving fotballers ..Seagulls following the trawler statement, ..showing how fricking dumb folk can be, I got it, I have a shitload of brain damage, I also got what Terje was trying to say in 140 characters or less, ..my gay friends wouldn’t give a toss either, half the problems emanate from the USA’s own “war from within” of which anything other than hetero is still a problem, your problem to mull over, we are much easier with regard to sexuality in most of Europe as it stands currently.
& this has since needlessly blown up with reporters scurrying to keep it alight as a subject, poor poor journalism, especially from yo-beat who usually rip the living shit out of all & sundry, ..fricking turncoats ala daily mail!
Think there was some asswipe pushing & pushing for Terje to apologise in Trans world snowboarder ….hell lets all complain about the use of the word “trans” now shall we!?
For the love of (insert chosen deity here) grow a pair & move on…
If the shoddy half pipe is married to another shoddy halfpipe, can i call it gay?
this makes me like terje that much more now
this is gay