The 'gay diet' | Food | The Guardian

Contents:

• HOW A GAY SLUR BEME A LC PART OF MY INTY
• THE 'GAY DIET'
• WHY I STARTED OKG AND A RECIPE FOR MY BIG GAY F SALAD

HOW A GAY SLUR BEME A LC PART OF MY INTY

” I gave a pulsory giggle, but that ltle jab would follow me through my adolcence, takg root the back of my a gay Haian Amerin, proud of all facets of my inty, u has many meangs to me. “The evince for u beg ed as a slur, specifilly to sult gay men, was first documented the early 1900s, ” says John Kelly, senr director of edorial at “Around this time, ‘u’ was also ed to refer to both an ‘easy victim’ and a promiscuo woman. ” Though the orig of u meang gay likely om the 19th century Brish unrground queer language Polari, the earlit prted rerd of as a gay sult is om a 1900 New Haven, Connecticut, amic document lled Dialect Not Vol.

You n image, through the lens of homophobia, how the word was weaponized agast gay ’s om the pejorative meangs that the word’s age broaned around the 1930s to refer to the mentally ill, beg kd of a tchall term for crazy, along wh other slang like bananas (which also was a slang term for a gay man) and nuts. The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn didn’t remove the diagnosis of homosexualy om the DSM until 1973, so beg gay was nsired a mental illns until 10 years before my birth.

THE 'GAY DIET'

Although my parents didn’t grow up Ameri, they started a fay here around the same time that gay rights were beg a natnal pot of discsn. One of the rare tim my father brought up homosexualy was when I was 12 and Olympian Greg Louganis revealed his HIV stat a Barbara Walters terview, years after he famoly h his head on a divg board. My earlit memory of my dad talkg about gay people is him sayg that Louganis should have been disqualified om his life’s work for beg HIV-posive.

My olr sister Loree was born the same year the first gay-oriented televisn mercial aired D.

C., and growg up we would e our own sort of Polari, a language we veloped to vertly refer to gayns orr to plate the ultranservative sensibili of our parents. The nickname Dupont Circle received for s largely gay crowd?

WHY I STARTED OKG AND A RECIPE FOR MY BIG GAY F SALAD

My mom and dad unwtgly enuraged this disnnect as they dropped not-so-subtle hts that havg a gay son was not the rds.

Sophomore year, around the time that I me out for the first time (more on that later) I scend the stairs om my bedroom wearg teeny-weeny short-shorts patterned wh ltle anchors. I was so trated that I blurted out the one thg I knew would shock my parents to silence: “I’m gay! Simon Doonan has jt wrten a new book lled Gay Men Don't Get Fat.

Doonan's text is more of an arch and wty disurse on aspects of gay and straight life, wrten a gossipy, ivolo and ultimately rather lovable style. "Gay foods are fiddly and foofy...