Drew Emery has been a Capitol Hill fixture for a good two decades. Back in the '90s, he created shows for the seminal Alice B. Theater. In 2005, he released his marriage equality documentary Inlaws & Outlaws. And last week, he got gay-slurred outside the fucking QFC on 15th.

Emery holds forth on the beguiling experience on his blog.

Last night, leaving the familiar fluorescence of my neighborhood Quality Food Center and reentering the pleasant Seattle drear, I passed a random man and woman on the sidewalk. As I often do, I smiled at these strangers as they went by. In response, he called me a fag.

To be honest, I didn't catch exactly what he said but it was something along the lines of "see, there's another fag" — and not under his breath, but loud and proud, for my benefit as much as hers. And while, my friends, I'm well aware that any number of people use this word constantly and casually, it's been a long time since someone's had the gall to call me that to my face. So random and rare an occurrence, just that one instance of this one word brought up a heap of responses from within...

Read the whole thing here.