Thread by @cmclymer

This news bit about Matt Damon only recently deciding to stop saying "faggot" after his daughter wrote him a "treatise" on it just makes me sad. Geez.

This is the kind of thing forces me to wonder how much homophobic and transphobic shit "progressive" white cis straight men say behind our backs, and that just really sucks.

"I'm glad he changed and that his daughter helped him change"

Yeah, I get the sentiment, but this is super 101 stuff. This is like 10+ years ago kinda stuff. And he knows better.

Sorry, it just doesn't make me feel very good.

Some of y'all are acting like I'm calling for a boycott or something. You do want you want. I mean, it's nice he figured out an anti-gay slur is anti-gay, but I feel sad it took him this long. And it's okay for me to feel that way. Please don't ask me to feel otherwise.

One more thing: some of y'all are extrapolating this and wondering if I'd feel the same way about your dad/uncle/grandpa who says homophobic shit. Instead, ask yourself why an A-list celebrity who's cultivated progressive creds over time would be this willfully oblivious.

I have a bad feeling that this is an incredibly clumsy attempt at marketing for a film in which Damon plays a good ole boy trying to save his queer daughter from harm, and I gotta tell ya: I know a lot of good ole boys who already get why this is wrong and don't do it.

I'm worried something is gonna get lost in translation here, so I'm gonna spell it out for clarity.

My sadness is in the "expectations vs. reality" sense.

I'm sad that something that should be obvious isn't so, but "obvious" isn't the same for everyone.

Stay with me...

You dad/uncle/grandpa, without Damon's exposure to progressive values and education and privilege and constant humanitarian service (which is great), have a different "obvious" than Damon's "obvious".

It's still wrong across the board. But Damon has far, far, far, far less of an excuse than your dad/uncle/grandpa. These are not the same kind of men. So, when even Damon doesn't seem to care, it makes me wonder how less likely it is that your dad/uncle/grandpa does.

And also: this could work the the exact other way. Men like your dad/uncle/grandpa could see Damon say this and think "oh, see, I'm allowed to not be so focused on this" instead of "oh, people make mistakes, all of us do, it's okay to grow".

You get it?

"Wow, even I don't say that word, and bleeding heart Damon does. I'm way ahead of the curve on this one. Maybe I'm not overthinking trans kids playing sports. Maybe my moral compass is doing just fine."