It is uncommon to hear someone say, "That’s so straight." Yet, somehow, the phrase "that’s so gay" has become commonplace in everyday speech.
"I hear it a lot, more than once a day,'' said Jessica LaFrank, a senior at Cupertino High School who will attend De Anza Community College's Middle College program in the fall. "I hear it at high school daily. And at the mall, too. Anywhere there is youth around."
The phrase has become synonymous with terms like "stupid," "lame" and "annoying," and even worse, it's hurtful to people like Jessica, who recently acknowledged her homosexuality.
"It's become habitual, and people don't think about it unless they think it will offend someone. And they usually don't believe it will offend. But it does, " the 17-year-old said.
According to Shannon Turk, the director of Mountain View's Outlet Program to help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transexual youths, "more than 80 percent of the time, the language hurts."
So how has this term become a staple of daily conversation for teens? According to online encyclopedia Wikipedia's entry on sexual slurs, whether the slurs come to exist in society is "determined by a society's or subculture's set of values, especially its biases against genders or sexual orientations."
In simpler terms: The usage of the phrase may be masking a form of homophobia. Gay isn't the only word that may be used inappropriately and hurtfully but is in constant use in daily culture. Another common phrase? "That's retarded," and the psychology behind that phrase goes even further.
"We've started using all these more politically correct terms: disabled, handicapped, special ed. The term "retarded" is less of a mainstream word and left for teens to use as more negative slang," said Dr. Swathi Vanniarajan, a professor of linguistics at San Jose State University.
Leftover terminology isn't the only reason behind these secondary uses. The world's history of intolerance has snowballed to allow some terms to become more acceptable.
"There have been other times in history that dominant groups have used ethnic, religious, racial, sexual slurs against other groups and have been allowed to just by saying they 'don't really mean anything.' But they all come from a place of oppression. It speaks for a greater problem in society, " Turk said.
Peer pressure and the media also play a role.