Why is calling heterosexual people breeders okay?
It doesn't make me feel good to say it, it's just I don't think what words I use matter when I'm in a private conversation with other people who feel the same. Sure, sometimes people might overhear the conversation, but it's rare and they shouldn't be listening in anyway. It's not like we talk loudly. We value not having filters in what we say to each other, we have plenty of conversations that we might not have otherwise because nothing is taboo, even if we disagree.
The other part of it is habit. I've played tons of online games throughout my life, and when you're in voice chat with people, often people you've known for years and grew up playing games with them, you constantly rib each other. I would assume it's a similar atmosphere in locker rooms too. As a result, we call each other fatty, gay slurs, even racial slurs sometimes. Not racial slurs like the n-word, but making fun of heritage. I get made fun of for being Canadian, I make fun of people for being Swedish or Mexican or British or whatever. Lets not forget about making fun of Brazilians. We had a player on our 'team' who was openly gay and he would always call people gay slurs as well, although he was the one person who was mostly immune to them because they could be taken too seriously. Although we still used them around him, and sometimes if he didn't do what we wanted someone would say "wow what a ***" but that was insanely standard and he did the same.
While these people were only people I spoke with online, my actual friends who I went to school with and played sports with also played these games with me and behaved the same way. It's just the atmosphere we grew up in and we have no reason to change. Certainly nobody is being kept in the closet because we all know we're pretty accepting, never had a problem with that guy in our team, and when I told them about my situation everyone was cool with it. That being said, sometimes we'll have someone new hanging out with us and they might seem uncomfortable. Either we explain the situation to them, or just stop using words like that, although we prefer the former.
What is also important to point out is that this language is used by us in a setting where everyone is cool with it, except for maybe people who overhear us. It's also certainly not a case of someone in the group being afraid to come out because of it, because nobody in the group would be afraid to come out for how we accept them, given our history. I would never use this language at work, on a bus, in a job interview or other places like that. Although I disagree with profanity in general, because some words being offensive like the f-word for example is insane, slurs are a whole different thing. I wish we could all move past finding them offensive in casual use, but that's just not realistic right now. I do absolutely hate, though, how more and more words are found offensive over time. This whole politically correct atmosphere in everything is disgusting. I don't care if someone calls me a gay slur or whatever jokingly, but if someone got in my face calling me those things, then we'd have a problem. That's the way I look at it, and I wish more people looked at it that way, but I accept that they don't.