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Irish television personality, skincare spokesperson, and Instastud Darren Kennedy took to Instagram this week to thank fans for their support following an unprompted homophobic attack on July 3.
“I was on Camden Street minding my own business of a Saturday night when a group of guys walked by and one of them pointed directly at me and went, ‘There’s the f*ggot off the telly,’ and they all laughed,” Kennedy said in his post.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, he’s talking about me,” Kennedy continued. “Oh my God, he’s calling me a f*ggot.’ Is it the first time I’ve been called a f*ggot? No. Is it the first time in a long time? It is.”
“I’m fine and thank you all for the gorgeous messages, ’cause I’ve been inundated, I’m absolutely fine,” Kennedy assured his followers. “Thank God I’ve got thicker skin than that, but I’m not going to lie to you, I’m going to be honest and say that it did sting in that moment in time. I was like oh my God. It kind of transported me back to my 13 or 14-year-old self, my school days when I was called ‘f*ggot’ a lot. And it’s not nice.”
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He continued, “If you do that, please stop. If you hear someone doing that, please do not accept it, and let’s give each other a break cause life’s tough enough as it is,” he concluded.
“Calling out everyday homophobia,” Kennedy further captioned the post. Shouting ‘f*ggot at people in the street is not ok. I’m fine and thank you for all the gorgeous messages. But it’s still not acceptable and I just want TO CALL IT OUT.”
In a subsequent interview with RTE 2FM radio host Jennifer Zamparelli, Kennedy further elaborated that the July 3 incident.
He and his boyfriend had gone to pick up food when a 20-something man approached Kennedy and made the slur. Kennedy further added that after sharing news of the incident on Instagram, he’d been approached by dozens of other LGBTQ people who claim to have experienced a rise in homophobia concurrent with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scroll down for more pics from Kennedy’s Instagram page…
Related: Boy bander Duncan James reveals how to survive homophobia as a gay dad
cliche guevara
Oh? At what age do we have to stop doing things that make up happy and have no impact on other people? Please enlighten us grand Oracle of the Queerty Comments.
BStromberg
Well, he’s certainly old enough to decide what he does and doesn’t want to wear. I have to say, after reading this article, there are a lot of thoughts and angles that it could be approached from but commenting on a story about homophobia with ageism is a tact that wouldn’t have occurred to me.
JromeGervais09
As a Catholic slut box, do you have time to wear sneakers? I mean who keeps shoes on their feet with their legs in the air?
Godabed
Love the message about homophobia.
On a completely different note, if you or anyone is carry any animal in a bag, you could never be attractive to me. That animal has four legs and if you’re not allowing it to use that to walk so you can carry it around. There is a problem of control that you have that I can not get past.
Just sayin’
Harvey Pooka
He’s riding his bicycle. So, he ties the dog’s leash to the back of the bike and drags a small dog around the streets. I think I trust him to know what his dog needs and enjoys. Give the man the benefit of a doubt.
scotshot
You may consider displaying your stupidity publicly.
Prax07
So wait, he wasn’t actually Attacked, just called a fag by some kid on the street? Jeez, yeah that’s not cool, but calling it an attack?
Heywood Jablowme
I had the same reaction, as someone who’s been physically injured in gay-bashings. “Attack” seems overly dramatic for a minor name-calling incident, even if it technically meets one of the dictionary definitions. It gives a misleading impression, and it’s not like physical anti-gay attacks never happen anymore.
cliche guevara
Kinda sad that slinging homophobic epithets is so normalized the even members of the LGBTQIA+ community will defend it.
Heywood Jablowme
@cliche guevara: Putting it into perspective is not at all the same as to “defend” it.
That homophobic epithet used to be MUCH more common than it is now. It’s hardly being “normalized”; it’s thankfully pretty rare as opposed to, say, 1990.
Do you really think getting called a f*g, and getting stabbed for being gay (as I was once), are EXACTLY THE SAME?
You’re a good example of someone conflating the metaphor with the literal. But you probably go around saying “literally” a lot without knowing what it means, lol.
cliche guevara
And let’s take these on one by one.
“That homophobic epithet used to be MUCH more common than it is now. It’s hardly being ‘normalized’; it’s thankfully pretty rare as opposed to, say, 1990.”
I’m not sure what the yelling/all caps is about but you do you. The fact that it had declined in uses has little to do with you trying to normalize the use of the term. Calling it “minor name-calling” is trivializing the term and equating it to things like “jerk”. So, yes, you are normalizing it.
“Do you really think getting called a f*g, and getting stabbed for being gay (as I was once), are EXACTLY THE SAME?”
This one is really strange. Did I say they were the same thing or anything close to that? No. No, I did not.
In terms of critical thought this is a good example of a straw man. You are trying to characterize what I said as something entirely different so that it easily dismissed.
“You’re a good example of someone conflating the metaphor with the literal. But you probably go around saying ‘literally’ a lot without knowing what it means, lol”
This is a non-sequitur and an ad hominem attack. This has nothing to do with what I said and is nothing but an attack on me personally while not addressing my point.
Now, back to my point. You said the epithet f-g is “minor name-calling” as if it was a term tossed around like “jerk” or “a–hole”. It isn’t. F-g is the last word many gay men heard before they were beaten to death. It was the last word I heard before three men jumped me. It was the last word Samuel Luiz heard when he was beaten to death this past weekend. It is absolutely not the same as “minor name-calling”. It is a word that instills fear of physical assault and death. It carries with it the hate of not just the individual but an entire community. And yes calling it is “minor name-calling” is trying to normalize it’s use and provides covers for the bigots that use it.
Heywood Jablowme
@cliche guevara: “F*g” was also the last word I heard before I was stabbed. And if they’d stopped at the minor name-calling, I wouldn’t have had to go to the hospital (and neither would you in your case). From Kennedy’s account it seems he wasn’t in physical danger. Pointing out these distinctions is not to “defend” the word or name-calling. Being called a f*g does not automatically equal a physical threat. It’s not even necessarily, legally actionable but an assault is.
It’s a misleading headline.
cliche guevara
Attacks/Assaults aren’t limited to physical violence. Both words include words in their definition. So the headline isn’t misleading for applying the term attack certainly isn’t misleading due to it’s application to words being used vs. physical violence. The bases of your dismissing this as an attack is equate the use of the word to “minor name-calling” like “jerk” or “a-hole”. We collectively don’t see those things as rising to level of attack or assault. The reason being is they are kind of normal things to say out of frustration and in the heat of the moment. Normal is the key word there and why you are normalizing using f-g as something that is simply said. But it isn’t something that is said out of frustration in the moment it is said become someone has a hate for gay people. It is said to invoke fear it inherently carries a threat of violence.
I get that I’m not going to change your mind. And like I said, it’s sad to see queer people normalize this kind of thing.
Heywood Jablowme
You keep saying “normal,” “normalizing” etc. and that’s a logical leap. As I already said it’s not normal or common (fortunately). I’m not trying to equate it with “jerk” or “a-hole” either and I don’t get why you pretend I’m doing that. You seem to think a lot of homophobes read Queerty and they’ll read this and be emboldened to say “f*g” a lot?
cliche guevara
I already explained the normalizing. F-g is hate speech. It is hate speech that you keep trying to demote to “minor name-calling”. I not pretending that that you are equating it to jerk, that is what you are doing. Jerk is run of the mill name calling not hate speech. So again, by doing this you are making hate speech like normal speech or normalizing.
The last part is another return to straw man territory. I’m not worried about homophones coming here and being emboldened and I never said anything like that. What I said what I stand by is that it is sad to see queer people normalize this kind of thing.
Heywood Jablowme
It’s illegal to physically assault someone, and in certain contexts it can be an illegal hate crime. But because of the First Amendment in the U.S., it’s impossible to make it illegal to call someone a “f*g” in a public place. In Ireland it may be different but the legal penalty would not be anywhere near as much as with a physical assault. I’m not “normalizing” anything by pointing that out. You need to grow a thicker skin and grow up, dear.
cliche guevara
And you are back to personal attacks.
Anyway, here is the comment you made that I responded to initially:
“I had the same reaction, as someone who’s been physically injured in gay-bashings. “Attack” seems overly dramatic for a minor name-calling incident, even if it technically meets one of the dictionary definitions. It gives a misleading impression, and it’s not like physical anti-gay attacks never happen anymore.”
Note that you don’t bring up wether the actions were legal or illegal whatsoever. Neither the definition of attack or assault require the action to be illegal. So to claim that you were simply pointing out that the actions weren’t illegal is complete and unadulterated BS on you part. This is the first time you have made that distancing and you are attempting to rewrite the history of this conversation in some desperate attempt to be right.
Heywood Jablowme
You started with personal attacks by saying I was “defend”ing and “normalizing” use of the word, and you keep saying that. I’m NOT doing that. I’m just pointing out that there are degrees of awfulness. If someone calls me a f*g but does not physically assault me (which has happened), yeah it’s awful, it may even ruin my day, but it’s just not that big a deal. Degrees of illegality are another metric to measure this. I assumed you might want a new legal remedy for this. But if you don’t want that, there’s no practical point to anything you’re saying.
I’m “on the spectrum” so I may be unable to comprehend whatever emotional (and to me, mawkish) response you want all queers to participate in.
That’s another thing: you use the word “queer” often – which is fine by me – but you no doubt realize that some people think that’s a slur. They say so here all the time. But queer has been “reclaimed” by us and evolved further. Theoretically, this could happen in the future with f*g and it would lose its power to offend.
Even if I were to agree with you completely, it wouldn’t stop even one homophobe from using the word since they don’t read Queerty! I’ve already pointed that out but you said you didn’t care. So what is the point of all this?
You’re spending an awful lot of time attacking (metaphorically in print) a gay man who agrees with you that f*g is a bad word.
cliche guevara
I kindly suggest you take a class on critical thought. There is a difference between personal attacks and discussing behavior.
I find it strange that your objection to this article was the use of the word “attack” and your consisted defense is that usage of words vs, physical abuse. And now I am attacking you using words. The mental gymnastics you have to do to get there are impressive.
The rest of your post is so off topic from the behavior I was addressing and more you just using poor rhetoric to maintain your initial comment. Good luck to you. I’m out.
Heywood Jablowme
“Attack” can be fine (says the dictionary) when it refers to words only – e.g. “Biden attacked Republicans today for” such & such.
But in the case of this headline, it is misleading. MOST readers seeing that would expect to read about a physical attack.
mikhailmaui
I was told 10 years ago by some little snotty 20 something that I was too old to wear Converse. I politely thanked him for his comment and told him I would be quite comfortable wearing them while flying to LA the next day onboard the family private jet. I am still wearing Converse…
Invader7
Who appointed you the fashion police? Oh that’s right NO one. Except yourself. Jealous much ???
Invader7
They’re mentally unbalanced , jealous A-hole thugs. Dumb ass hetero A-holes !!!
stu_d
I literally can’t believe that people can make offensive comments underneath an article about offensive comments? Why would you want to do that? I’m so disappointed…makes me realise how far we still have to go!