The history of the word “gay” | The Gayly

Contents:

• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE
• GAY
• MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY
• A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

In the 1890s, the term “gey t” (a Sttish variant of gay) was ed to scribe a vagrant who offered sexual servic to women or a young traveler who was new to the road and the pany of an olr man.

” This le (ad-libbed by Grant) n be terpreted to mean that he was behavg a happy-go-lucky or lighthearted way but is accepted by many as the first e of gay to mean homosexual a mastream movie. When gay is ed today to mean stupid or unsirable ( has only been ed this way sce the 1990s), rri wh a history of negative judgment and rigid ias about who or what is acceptable. The wrer Christopher Isherwood said bt when he explaed that beg gay do not volve the act of sex; stead, is the proclivy or the abily to fall love wh another member of the same genr.

GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE

Further, gay lerature also n share tras of other thematic clters of lerature, such as Femist/Femism, Native Amerin, and Ain-Amerin and such genr as tective short fictn, the ghost story, and the edy. Dpe the much-heated bate over William Shakpeare’s sexualy, many crics believe his work—ltered wh cross-drsg characters and same-sex affectnate them—strik a fe gay or bisexual rd. The gay liv of the lerary giants Virgia Woolf and Gert Ste were wily known lerary circl, yet until recently scholarship about their sexualy or any subtle gay them their work has been mimal.

At midcentury psychologil associatns told Amerins that homosexualy was abnormal behavr, thereby ntradictg the Ksey Report, which dited that nearly 10 percent of Amerins were homosexual. Although did not ga the momentum of the civil rights and women’s rights movements of the time, this marked the begng of an age when gays stopped hidg unrground and beme advot for their rights.

GAY

Numero anthologi of short gay fictn clu The Faber Book of Gay Short Fictn (1991), Pengu Book of Gay Short Stori (1994), Pengu Book of Lbian Short Stori (1994), the seri Men on Men (begng 1988) and Women on Women (begng 1990), and even an anthology of gay and lbian science fictn, Kdred Spirs (1984).

MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH

The Lambda awards (Lbian, Gay Male, Bisexual, and Transgenr Awards) have swelled to 22 tegori, cludg story llectns and anthologi, poetry, memoirs, cultural studi, public policy, law, history, spirualy, and genr studi. The awards have gone not only to exclively homosexual or transgenr wrers but also to those who w awards both gay and straight tegori, such as Jefey Eugenis, the Pulzer Prize–wng novelist and short story wrer.

The lerature of homosexualy has evolved to the pot where is often grouped not only acrdg to ethnicy and genre, for example, Lata and China, Ain-Amerin, Asian and Native Amerin, but also to sorts of sexualy, such as gay, transsexual, and bisexual not to mentn the lerary genr that reprent , cludg mystery, science fictn, and tective fictn, and even geographic regn. Categori: Gay and Lbian Novels, Genr Studi, Lerature, Queer Theory, Short StoryTags: Amerin Lbian Short Fictn, Amerin Lerature, Gay and Lbian Fictn, Gay and Lbian Stori, Gay Fictn, Gay Men’s Wrg, Gay Short Stori, Homosexualy and Lerature, Homosexualy Amerin Lerature, Homosexualy Lerature, Homosexualy Short Stori, Lbian and Gay Cricism, Lbian Short Stori, Lerary Cricism, The Bt New Gay Fictn, Them of Homosexualy Lerature.

Bisexualy has been viewed wh gay studi as distct om homosexualy, and bisexuals have found themselv exclud om gay events and anizatns although a great many “gay ins” om Socrat to Shakpeare to Osr Wil were married and fathered children. The word “homosexual” was, fact, created the late neteenth century as an English equivalent for German Homosexualtät, which first appeared prt 1869 a pamphlet argug agast the Pssian legal that prcribed punishments for men who engaged same-sex relatns.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY

FouultIn the troductn to the first volume of his Histoire la sexualé (1976; English translatn, History of Sexualy, 1978), Michel Fouult argu that homosexualy is an ventn of the late neteenth century. The neteenth-century homosexual beme a personage, a past, a se history, and a childhood, addn to beg a type of life, a life form, and a morphology, wh an discreet anatomy and possibly a myster physlogy. Adoptg his posn, crics have argued, for example, that Walt Whman and Osr Wil (1854–1900) were not, strictly speakg, homosexuals, at least the sense that medil and psychologil tablishments unrstood that “ndn” or “speci” the twentieth century.

Whether the dividual is born homosexual or his or her homosexual sir are socially nstcted, is clear that medi-scientific theori of homosexualy as a curable disease were an ventn of the late neteenth and early twentieth centuri.

Homosexualy plays by Tennsee Williams is differently unrstood, for example, than is poems by Walt Whman, and the difference is largely rooted medi-scientific nsiratns rather than ethil or polil on. Psychoanalysis, the populary of which crted the Uned Stat the 1940s and 1950s, claimed that homosexuals were abnormal but that, wh the guidance of psychiatrists, they uld be “cured. If the play were wrten now, one might expect Brick to abandon Maggie, but as wrten by Williams, who was homosexual, the oppose happens, and the play ends “happily” when Maggie announc that she is pregnant.

A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN

One rells thgs as var as Ernt Hemgway's dismissive attu toward homosexuals his books, the “pansi” played for lghs Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s, and Hart Crane's joyo announcement—havg, he believed, fallen love wh a woman—that he was not homosexual after all.

Although Amerin lerature the first two-thirds of the twentieth century almost always impli the medi-scientific fn whenever homosexualy enters the text, Whman had his own succsors, om Bliss Carman (1861–1929) and Richard Hovey (1864–1900) to Marsn Hartley (1877–1943) to Langston Hugh (1902–1967) and Gerr Lansg (b.

Hallock vtigat one pecially tense relatnship his bgraphy of Fz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867), The Amerin Byron (2000), whom he views as a homosexual drawn to the younger poet Joseph Rodman Drake (1795–1820).

Graham's importance to popular beliefs about sexualy the neteenth century should warn agast general or facile observatns about siari between attus toward homosexualy our own day and Thore's. Sedgwick se Jam as a homosexual who rarely alt openly wh male timacy but whose work foc on “homosocial” (her term) suatns that occur when, for example, two men stggle for the attentn of a woman; emotns are directed by each man more strongly toward his petor than toward their shared object of sire.