An infamous case of gay bashing happened in 2010 when gay men were attacked by a homophobic group on Sao Paulo’s main avenue in Brazil. The aggressors used fluorescent lamps to lacerate one of the victim’s faces, abusing them physically with the bulbs and verbally with words such as bicha ––Brazilian slang for faggot. Objects make people bleed, but words also hurt. Similar pejorative terms have been used to reference homosexuality or used against those with same-sex desires. Words like “queer” and “sissy” have been a weapon for stigmatisation.
Not only words were used to bruise the ones who dared to love someone of the same sex. Shortly after Germany was unified, it was a number that haunted men who desired men: 175. It came from a paragraph that stated a collection of anti-sodomy laws that criminalised their desires. A similar penal code already existed priorly in Prussian states, but the 175 number established a new era of social persecution. 175 was more than a number. It was a mark. Later, the Nazis reinforced this law, and the same number was applied as a nickname for homosexuality from history have been made, the same symbols prove that homosexuality resists. The most subversive act of resistance is to switch hate into love, to invert what has been used negatively and turn into honour.
Pejorative terms now establish community and assert identities. Badges of shames such as the pink triangle are reclaimed as international symbols of gay pride. In Brazil, the same fluorescent lamp used for brutality is now a symbol used against oppression. Activist groups organised a “Lamp Riot” to protest against homophobic violence and defend non-normative sexualities. Hate has been reclaimed to confirm that homos existed, exist and will continue to exist.
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