I wrote an article recently about Justin Thomas, the number three ranked golfer in the world.

Missing a putt, he muttered the word faggot out loud, and got caught on an open mic.

The world reacted with a great big yawn. News outlets, including liberal ones like NPR, treated the incident like it didn’t matter. Nobody reported on it with the gravity it deserved, outside a couple of queer publications.

The few people who did speak up about it got shouted down by people defending Thomas.

I wrote an article in which I thanked him for an apology he made, but urged him to take more concrete action, to leverage his platform for inclusion.

Then I got shouted down.

Very frequently, I got shouted down by people telling me any offense I experience from the word faggot is my own choice.

But words are powerful and they do stick to walls. I’ve written before that homophobia pervades the air queer Americans breathe.

Of course it does so on the wings of words, which are very powerful.