Casual Homophobia on Twitter

Check out this new website, NoHomophobes.com

They're tracking four terms on twitter...

Faggot

No Homo

Dyke

and

So Gay

showing how often each term comes up so far today, last week, and since they started counting on July 5, 2012.  They're also displaying the current stream of tweets with those words. 

It's overwhelming.  And infuriating.  And should make us all pause and think.  As the site says,

"Homophobic language isn't always meant to be hurtful, but how often do we use it without thinking?"

It's hard to watch the numbers climb, but the idea behind the "social mirror" website, created by the University of Alberta's Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services (in Canada), is to call out this homophobia so we can change it.

"The use of homophobic language only serves to hurt, stereotype, and further isolate sexual minority students and we need to take a stand; ignoring such language is not an option." - Dr. Fern Snart, Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta.

Want to help them?  If you see or experience casual homophobia on twitter, use the #nohomophobes hashtag and encourage everyone you know to stop the casual homophobia out there!

Namaste,
Lee