homophobic gay "friends"

I have friends of mine say completely unhinged things and slurs about lgbt and minorities alike, but they are not aggressive towards them at all. Supportive, even. My case is not similar to yours. They use it as quips.

Slurs can be embedded into the vocabulary of people if they are exposed to it. Even if they do not necessarily have the "right" to use it. I can't fully put a pin on your friend from here though... I would need literal insight on what's happening between you two at that moment, but that's not possible.

Looking at some of the remarks that he has said, they clock as pretty homophobic. If they are increasing in number and severity, he might have gone out of light banter with it. I mean if you are straight up feeling bad because of it, if it hurts you, he's in the wrong. Do you still feel like he is your friend? With the fact that they are also sexist and racist, it's likely that they are using the slurs for homophobic means. They just might not want to directly hurt you with them, if you are still friends. I think it's an odd possibility. Like "I don't like gay people but you are fine".

Have you tried confronting them about this? I know it's hard...

You might want to look at his side expressions and details when he says these things.
-things like tone of voice, other hand movements, if he is directly looking at you, facial expression, etc. Are they aggressive?
-when does he say them, is he becoming repulsed of you, is he as willing to see you as before (meeting you, turning up to events)?
*-do other people find his remarks crude?
-you can maybe try to say a light remark on how it's not nice to say that for a while, see how he reacts (does he say something like "they deserve it" or apologise?)

I'm sorry that I can't help you in how to resolve this. If he is unstable and poses a risk to himself, maybe talk to a psychologist and ask how they would sever ties with someone like this. I don't know how confronting him about this would work. Someone more experienced will post here and you can see what they would do. Thank you.

 

When friends act as you described, it is usually because they're looking for personal attention. They get frustrated that you're not paying enough attention to them as they want. So that frustration manifests into acting annoying or immature in a vie to force you to notice them. Sometimes they're annoying all the time because they want 24/7 attention from you. Then when low hanging fruit like queer jokes present itself, they unfortunately stoop to that new low. The more you cave in to answering their pleas for attention, the more they get spoiled and abuse the friendship. you become like their codependent emotional punching bag they feel entitled to abuse because they "care about you". I know your friend is in a bad place but that doesn't give him the right to make you suffer in order for him to feel better. Odds are he knows that you feel trapped into helping him. There is a fine line between being sweet yet stern versus being harsh. But sometimes you got to do what you got to do to stick up for yourself.

I used to have a friend in school who sat behind me in class. He always wanted me to turn around and face him so we could talk. But most of the time you have to sit normally in your seat to pay attention and learn something in class. So he would act annoying and constantly jab me sharply in the back with a pen to get my attention even if we were in the middle of the class lecture. I tried everything in the book to reason with him and show him the error of his ways. I was sweet and stern but it didn't matter. After a couple weeks of that, I talked to the teacher before class and explained the situation. I told her you have 2 choices. Give me a new assigned seating or I punch his teeth in. She changed it immediately. After that I made it verbally clear to him that I wasn't going to entertain his BS and he learned to respect me real quick if he still wanted to be friends with me.

That experience I had was a little intense but I wanted to share it with you to show how bad it can get. Usually respect goes without saying or you earn it. But sometimes you have to defend your dignity and demand respect.

 

It’s a rare occurrence, but very occasionally you just have to tell someone to STFU. This might be one of those times….

 

I was once in a similar situation. In my case, they were straight friends. They accepted my sexuality since the very beginning, but I instantly began to mock about it and make jokes about myself being queer and a "f*ggot". I understand now that i was trying to prevent any insult and defend myself before they could hurt me in anyway. So they started making the same jokes, and I followed them.

Suddenly, two years ago, it was not funny anymore. Specially, one friend seemed to only talk to me to point how gay I am, and made a lot of nasty jokes. At one point, he made a comment about monkey pox that hurted me. And then I told him so. He swore he didn't know that disease was related to gay people at that moment. I believe him: I noticed that he didn't want to upset me anytime... but he did. And he needed to know it. The joke was not funny anymore: we all had taken it too far.

I handled it with care, told him quietly but firmly that his comments were harmful and I want them to stop. He understood and stopped. I think that's the best and only way to handle this. If a friend really loves you, he/she would understand.