I'm a transgender man and I've recently become good friends with a straight dude. We have only been friends for a few months, but we became very close, very fast. We talk every day and he's become a huge pillar of support for me. He's known that I am transgender and bi-sexual since the first time we hung out. Today when we were working out together he used the word "gay" to describe something as being bad. Which I recognize is pretty innocuous given the area we are in. He apologized to me immediately after he said it and rephrased it. I told him it was okay, but I felt really hurt and sad regardless. I grew up in a conservative town with a religious family. With the exception of my dad, all of my friends and family have very negative opinions of LGBTQ+ individuals. I'm fortunate enough that many of them have reconsidered or made me an "exception" in their minds. I'm glad that I still have those support structures but I feel like a "freak" knowing how they actually feel about other transgender and queer individuals. I felt so safe and secure in this new friendship
hearing him use anti-gay language took me by surprise. I know it's probably just a remnant of the culture we grew up in, but it made me feel like he saw me as a "freak" as well. I'm just kind of sad from it I guess.
It’s understandable that this has caused you to feel upset, particularly as it came as surprise. Though he shouldn’t have said it in the first place, I do think it’s good that he apologised immediately and recognised that it was not appropriate. In your shoes, I would probably treat this as a one-off mistake and then review the friendship if it starts to becomes a regular occurrence. Hopefully he’ll be more mindful of his language moving forwards and it won’t happen again. If it does become a repeated occurrence, you might want to speak to him about how much it upsets you, or possibly reconsider the friendship. What did you say to him after he apologised? Did you give an indication of how it upset you?
I think he didn’t think anything about it. He is not insulting your sexuality. I know someone will complain about something at work and use the word gay. Instead of saying “this fucking sucks” he will say “this is gay”.