New Zealand Teacher Wants Pejorative Use Of Word “Gay” Banned

A teacher in New Zealand is on a mission to ban the word "gay" from pupils' everyday speech, The Press reporting that Warren Bowers, who has a master's degree on homosexuality in education, said New Zealand children and teenagers seemed to use "gay" as a negative colloquial term more than pupils in other countries. "Quite often teachers just ignore it ... teachers will pull kids up on using sexist language, they'll pull kids up on using racist language ... but if kids use that word `gay' ... quite often, they'll just let it slide." However, Victoria University linguistics professor Laurie Bauer said he doubted a ban would have much effect. Despite common use of racist terms being eliminated, racism still existed. Bowers, who is gay, said it was hard enough coming out as homosexual without the negative connotations associated with the word. He decided to research the subject after a young girl in one of his classes, with lesbian parents, came to him upset after her classmates used gay "as a bad thing". Bowers talked to his class and explained it could be hurtful, and has since had a ban against the word in his classes. "It does need to be explained that homophobic language is not OK ... it's kind of a last bastion of accepted prejudice." Many teachers were probably unaware of the impact of the word, he said. While most people used it without intending it to be offensive, "it is offensive and it does hurt people's feelings". Bauer said he visited about 30 primary schools nationwide for about 10 years and noted the prevalence of the word "gay". "It was very, very noticeable at that point." The usage, which "didn't seem to have much to do with [homosexuality]", had been around for at least five years before that in America, he said. "`Gay' has meant so many different things, its history is really quite amazingly complicated." Gay former education minister and independent MP Chris Carter said it was important teachers began thinking about the appropriateness of pupils using the word in class. "If we were using the word `nigger' or the word `Paki' or some other derogatory word ... it would be an issue, but this is equally a good focus for discussion."