"That T-Shirt could be a little less gay," a character on C4's new TV 'mini-soap' said on an episode this week, prompting concerned emails to GayNZ.com and the show's producers from gay viewers. "In the episode broadcast on Wednesday, a prim woman looks at a chap and tells him his bright yellow T-shirt is a bit gay... clearly a bad thing,” said a viewer who emailed GayNZ.com. "This is an anti-gay slur. It's a sensitive issue for us, since numerous studies have shown anti-gay bullying in NZ schools, where the word 'gay' is often used in a negative context," the email continued. Robert Marshall, Youth Coordinator for Auckland LGBT youth support network Rainbow Youth contacted MyStory's creators The Gibson Group directly when he learned of the televised comment. “Nine and ten-year-old kids hear, 'that's so gay' as they are growing up in our schools. It is discriminatory and entirely inappropriate,” he said. “Most the time the they are not intending to be homophobic, but it is a way of describing something that is weird. Is it appropriate for a similar racial or religious slur? Of course not.” Nathan Brown, spokesperson for the ‘Out There' project for LGBT young people, also spoke yesterday of his concerns about young people at school using homophobic language. “Words like homo, lessie, fag and ‘that's so gay' are actually mainstream, typical terms that are used by students every single day in High Schools across New Zealand, to say that someone has done something stupid or that somebody doesn't like – regardless of whether that person is gay or not,” said Brown on National Radio yesterday. “Young people are getting messages about what it means to be gay from the use of that language”. The issue is also a controversial elsewhere in the world. When Californian schoolgirl Rebekah Rice was overheard saying “that's so gay” to mean "that's so stupid" in 2002, school officials took a strict stand, resulting in a law suit which raised the question in court: “When do playground insults used every day all over America cross the line into hate speech that must be stamped out?" Rainbow Youth's Robert Marshall has a message for gay youth who experience anti-gay slurs at school. “Dealing with the internal homophobia helps with the external stuff. If you feel good about yourself, it makes it harder for others to make you feel bad. Humour can really help sometimes." To the TV media, Marshall says, "try not to stereotype queer youth and try and create some positive role models for a change. Bulling of Queer Youth in NZ schools is a serious problem, we spend a lot of time in schools trying to help them address this." When contacted by GayNZ.com, Dave Gibson from 'My Story' creators The Gibson Group said the concerned viewer comments about the programme have been noted, but did not make any further statement. Ref: GayNZ.com (m)