I, personally, have no issue with being gay, agender, or affectionately or sarcastically referring to oneself as a faggot, but none of that is relevant to the particular usage that got you in trouble.

You weren’t talking about yourself. You tried to bait another party into using hate speech to escalate a dispute. You wanted to weaponize a slur to play the victim and get someone else in trouble. And you did so in a public place where your behavior caused offense to bystanders.

Me and the bf say “those are bedroom words”

Partly in jest, but while some could argue the slurs have been somewhat reclaimed, some people are understandably bothered by them being used casually and might have traumas about them being used against them. Soo I avoid using it without knowing how my current company feels about it.

Sure, it’s “ok” in that I don’t think you should go to jail for it.

But you need to be “ok” with the consequences. Like how many people would be turned off by your language and would not want to associate with you. Who would judge you as a high-drama person to avoid (this is where I am personally, given your description of using a slur to try to bait someone into trouble). And people like school administrators who would remove you for breaking their specific rules on speech (or mods on a forum). And the employer who would fire you for using what is generally seen as unprofessional language.

TL;DR - Day’s end you can call yourself whatever you want. It would be a problem calling them that when they don’t like being called that. But also don’t tell somebody else to call you that in hopes they’ll get in shit.

You were hoping they’d get in shit for using the word, so your motives in that instance weren’t exactly pure. Maybe reflect on that part. It’s still weaponising the word.

Generally speaking though, to me it’s no different than a woman going up to her group of girl friends and saying '‘Sup bitches!!!’, or Black people using the n-word amongst each other, or Roma people using g–sy amongst themselves. If a gay person wants to call themself a f-----, have at it!

I had a thing with some girl friends where we’d volley ‘slut’, ‘whore’, ‘harlot’, etc. at each other. We’d also try to get as ridiculous as possible with it the names. A random person shouting those names at us would be a bad thing, but the context and rapport we had with each other changed that in those cases. It’s also something I wouldn’t do with people I didn’t really know regardless of gender since we don’t have that background with each other.

I’m part Portuguese and if somebody wants to call me a pork chop I’m like, ‘Damn straight!’ and I’ll sometimes call myself that too. But I won’t call my cousin’s cousin that because he doesn’t like being called that and that’s fine.

EDITED TO FIX FORMATTING… (still getting used to things on this platform, lol)

you can do what you want. Personally it hurts me to hear the f-slur due to a lot of trauma, regardless of context. But I’m a big boy who can deal with it, but useful context for you to consider

No you were not in the “right”

Two wrongs don’t make a right

For you personally to use that word to describe or allude to yourself and only yourself seems like something thats totally your call.

I do have to say though that encouraging someone else to use a word that is (or was once) a slur - especially if they are not gay themselves and therefore cannot possibly be reclaiming it - feels like a regressive and fairly crappy thing to do (assuming that they are straight).

I’ve noticed some of my gay friends try to “reclaim” slurs while others treat the words as taboo. Seems like a matter of personal preference to me.