“Sissy” This!
I got called a lot of things growing up. I was called a sissy from as early as I can remember. That was the first and most common. Then there were the others. I got called a faggot before I knew what a faggot was, a cocksucker before I’d ever even had the chance to actually suck a cock, and a queer before I knew what it meant to be called one.
Over the years, and especially after I came out, I got over all of these names one way or another — all except one. Sissy. For some reason, it still bothers me to hear someone called a sissy.
The others? Who cares! We’re “Gay” now. Empowered. We appropriated faggot and queer from the haters and made them our own. Anybody calls me a faggot or a queer gets a “sure am, and proud of it” from me before I even think twice (sometimes to the great consternation of my husband who tends to be a bit more circumspect and less of an activist than me).
I remember being called a faggot by some guys in a car on Duval Street in Key West (of all places), and before I thought about the possible consequences, I yelled back “Do you even know where you are? There are faggots everywhere. Get over it.”
Back to the story though, “Sissy” still bothers me. Not for my own sake of course. I’m way too old and too jaded to be called a sissy myself anymore (much less care if someone did), but I still hear little kids get called sissies, and it bothers me more than a little, mostly because the kids getting called sissy probably don’t even yet understand why the pejorative term is getting leveled at them.
Sissy is unlike queer or faggot or even gay. It’s harder hitting in some ways because it’s often the first inkling a kid gets that they are different from “the norm.” Different. And different in what is evidently considered by the majority to be “a bad way.”
I personally hope sissy eventually falls into disuse among humans, but especially among children, and bullies. I also hope (perhaps vainly) that people in general can grow more understanding and accepting of boys with effeminate qualities, and that sissies can become just the regular kids they are.
Can humans do that? I’m not sure. Every day I see evidence that we are less able to evolve than I might hope, but I still hope that one day the word “sissy” can disappear from our vocabulary except possibly as a term on endearment for someone’s sister. I just “might” accept that usage without getting angry.…