After landing in hot water for designing a t-shirt that reads “I’m Not Gay, I’m a Man,” designer Stefano Gabbana has finally addressed the shirt in an interview with Italian outlet Corriere Della Serra.
The full video of the Gabbana’s comments is available here.
“I’m just surprised at how, still to this day, people call me gay,” Gabbana said. “But why ‘gay’ in reality I am a man.”
He added, “The word gay is just a word, an invented word that is used to identify people. But I don’t want to be identified or classified by my sexual choice.”
(Editor’s note: All words are invented to identify things.)
While Gabbana commented that he didn’t want to be classified by his sexual choice, he did not state whether or not he had a problem being identified as a man, an invented word for the invented concept of gender.
Gabbana brought up the t-shirt and said, “I am saying that there are just human rights and that’s it. The most important thing is human being, with no other definitions. These distinctions are absurd and they are used in politics or by other entities to exploit situations in their favor.”
(Editor’s note: “Human” is an invented word to identify a species.)
When the shirt originally debuted on Instagram, it was met with a flurry of negative criticism.
“I prefer being shirtless than using this piece of crap,” one commenter wrote at the time. “Shame on you,” said another.
Gabbana has been on the record saying he doesn’t want to be labeled as gay before.
“I don’t want to be called ‘gay,’ because I’m simply a man … full stop,” Gabbana said. “The word ‘gay’ was invented by those who need to label people, and I don’t want to be identified by my sexual choices.”
Gabbana has drawn the ire of LGBTQ people for his support of Melania Trump wearing his clothing. He’s also said that he doesn’t believe gay couples should be allowed to adopt children.
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