Lesbian rapper Syd The Kyd has come under attack by gay advocates for being homophobic.
In a recent interview with Out Magazine, Kyd stood by her fellow Odd Future band member, Tyler The Creator, who has been criticized for his anti-gay rap lyrics.
“Most of the homos I know use homophobic slurs, and it’s never a problem unless someone who’s not a part of the group is using the word,” Syd says. “But a lot of people take things out of context, and you’ve got to understand that there is a difference between saying, ‘Hey, you faggot’ and ‘Hey, faggot.’ When Tyler says ‘faggot,’ he’s not referring to gays, he’s referring to lame people. And in our vocabulary, that’s what the word ‘faggot’ means. I’m not offended by the word ‘faggot’ — and I am one.”
This didn’t sit well with Mindy Abovitz, editor of Tom Tom Magazine, who recently canceled a piece on Syd after taking offense at Kyd’s music video in which she tossed her lesbian lover out of a moving vehicle for falling asleep.
“We finally have an empowered, talented, young black queer female artist and she is performing and presenting as a misogynistic dude. Perhaps we need to take the limelight off the artists that are doing us a disservice,” said Abovitz.
As a lesbian blogger who has also been accused of being homophobic I totally get where Syd is coming from. Just because we don’t hold hands with other gays and sing kumbaya every time the gay community feels slighted does not makes us homophobic — it makes us realists. Some of us gays need to get over ourselves.
