Defns | The Office of Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr, Queer, and Intersex Life | Vanrbilt Universy

Contents:

• THE 'GAY' WORD: WHAT DO MEAN WHEN YOUNG PEOPLE E NEGATIVELY?
• GAY
• LET’S SAY GAY
• SYNONYMS OF GAY
• LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, QUEER, & INTERSEX LIFE
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• GAY DICTNARY

THE 'GAY' WORD: WHAT DO MEAN WHEN YOUNG PEOPLE E NEGATIVELY?

As our age note on the term stat, “up until 1973, homosexualy was listed The Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), psychiatry’s standard reference on the classifitn of mental illns.

And many feel that this word plac undue emphasis on sexual activy, or that sounds overly clil.” In fact, the term homosexual was liberately rejected by early gay rights activists bee, acrdg to The New York Tim, “they did not want to be intified as exclively sexual begs.”.

GAY

Partially rponse to Stonewall, 1970, queer activists New York Cy anized a march to Central Park wh the theme “Gay Pri.” A more prehensive history of the Stonewall Rt or the Stonewall Uprisg n be found our Pri Month explaer. A word that origally meant happy and reee beme a ntral label to scribe homosexualy, and end up beg a term ed to ppot somethg people don’t like, fd embarrassg, or want to distance themselv do this mean that young people are more homophobic than ever before?

“The problem wh sayg ‘that’s so gay’ is that even though you and your iends might know you’re not beg homophobic, if you’re g a public or semi-public space, other people might see you as homophobic, ” he jt my stunt overdraft as my budget, I cid to make a documentary explorg how this piece of language had evolved, and speak to people both gay and straight to see how they felt aboutthe word takg on a negative gay people I spoke to were ntent wh the word evolvg, while there were straight people who were outraged.

LET’S SAY GAY

Younger people, whom we might have expected to have more awarens of what means to intify as gay bee of media verage, were often the mographic fendg the negative e of this olr people I spoke to felt strongly that should not be allowed to be ed negatively.

Equal marriage legislatn may suggt that society has advanced s thkg, but there remas a gap s grasp of gay inty, culture and the week leadg up to the premiere of my documentary, The Gay Word, s trailer was shown a London cema. One sendary school teacher told me staff often “turn a bld eye” to behavur that may be makg gay pupils feel unfortable at young people I met while makg this film told me that school is tough and not a place they n flourish.

SYNONYMS OF GAY

That same year, Pieters beme a natnal spokperson for AIDS awarens and gay polil activism after his historic terview wh televangelist Tammy Faye on her broadst, which fied the work's homophobic tennci.

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTPamela Bons /Visum, via RxLast month, the new print of the advocy group Human Rights Campaign, Kelley Robson, posted a six-and-a-half-mute vio to troduce herself and ame the missn of her anizatn, which was found 40 years ago by the gay activist Steve Enan to help fund polil mpaigns for pro-gay-rights ndidat. Q., ” which sometim clus addnal symbols and letters, reprents so many inti unrelated to sexual orientatn that gays and lbians n feel crowd week on “CBS News Sunday Morng, ” the wrer David Sedaris said he was done “fightg the word ‘queer.

LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, QUEER, & INTERSEX LIFE

” Another fn refers not only to gay people but also to “a person whose sexual orientatn or genr inty falls outsi the heterosexual mastream or the genr bary, ” acrdg to That uld mean “transgenr, ” “genr ntral, ” “nonbary, ” “agenr, ” “pangenr, ” “genrqueer, ” “misexual, ” “asexual, ” “two spir, ” “third genr” or all, none or some batn of the above. It uld mean you valiantly plowed through the prose of Judh Butler a urse on queerns the Elizabethan the broad spectm of possibily, ’s no surprise that many people — gay or straight — have no ia what means when someone self-intifi as this is important: Not all gay people see themselv as queer. In the se of “queer, ” ’s pecially worrisome and not only bee superses wily accepted and unrstood terms but also bee the gay rights movement’s succs have historilly hged on efforts at people, lbians and bisexuals fought for a long time to be open and clear about who they are.

LGBTQ2S+ ALLY: Someone who nonts heterosexism, anti- LGBTQ2S+ bias, heterosexual and cisgenr privilege themselv and others; believ that heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia are social jtice issu. E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy. Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power. In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons.

GAY DICTNARY

In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women. In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act. In the 1970s and ’80s, gay polil anizatns proliferated, particularly the Uned Stat and Europe, and spread to other parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and succs—and toleratn by thori—varied signifintly.

Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons.