How ‘Gay’ Came to Mean ‘Homosexual’

Contents:

• GAY (ADJ.)
• GAY
• WHEN DID "GAY" BEE ASSOCIATED WH HOMOSEXUALY? [DUPLITE]
• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• ETYMOLOGY OF GAY
• GAY ETYMOLOGY
• THE ORIGS OF THE WORD ‘GAY’
• MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH
• THE MEANG OF GAY: WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO USE IT

GAY (ADJ.)

240]The associatn wh (male) homosexualy likely got a boost om the term gay t, ed as far back as 1893 Amerin English for "young hobo, " one who is new on the road, also one who sometim do jobs. Gay ts were severely and celly abed by "real" tramps and bums, who nsired them "an ferr orr of begs who begs of and otherwise preys upon the bum — as were a jackal followg up the kg of beasts" [Prof.

GAY

McCook, "Tramps, " "The Public Treatment of Pperism, " 1893], but some acunts report certa olr tramps would domate a gay t and employ him as a sort of slave. In "Soclogy and Social Rearch" (1932-33) a paragraph on the "gay t" phenomenon not, "Homosexual practic are more mon than rare this group, " and gey t "homosexual boy" is attted Noel Erske's 1933 dictnary of "Unrworld & Prison Slang" (gey is a Sttish variant of gay) "Dictnary of Amerin Slang" reports that gay (adj. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] not a male prostute g gay reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostut) London's notor Cleveland Street Sndal of 1889.

[John Boswell, "Christiany, Social Tolerance, and Homosexualy, " 1980]As a teen slang word meang "bad, ferr, unsirable, " whout reference to sexualy, om (n. In May, the Temecula Valley Unified School District’s board voted 3 to 2 to reject a new curriculum that clud discsns on the gay rights movement and mentned Harvey Milk, the first out gay man elected to public office California. 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.

WHEN DID "GAY" BEE ASSOCIATED WH HOMOSEXUALY? [DUPLITE]

From Middle English gay, om Old French gai (“joyful, lghg, merry”), ually thought to be a borrowg of Old Occan gai (“impetuo, lively”), om Gothic *?????? (*gaheis, “impetuo”), mergg wh earlier Old French jai ("merry"; see jay), om Frankish *gāhi;[1] both om Proto-Germanic *ganhuz, *ganhwaz (“sudn”).

The sense of homosexual (first rerd no later than 1937 by Cary Grant the film Brgg Up Baby, and possibly earlier 1922 the poem "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene" by Gert Ste[6][7]) was shortened om earlier gay t ("homosexual boy") unrworld and prison slang, self first attted about 1935, but ed earlier for a young tramp or hobo attached to an olr one.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

2003, Michael McAvennie, The World Wrtlg Entertament Yearbook:She uldn't even ga accs om a fay iend whose name was on the list, nor uld she e her feme charms to turn on the staff member, who revealed he was gay and was more imprsed seeg Billy and Chuck enter the buildg.

2005, Mark Caldwell, New York Night, page 133:Of the dozen or so survivg articl, squibs, and letters to the edor, the most remarkable appeared the Whip and Satirist’s Febary 12, 1842, issue, and disclosed the existence of a bal of gay men New York's otherwise wholome nightspe of brothels and rts.

ETYMOLOGY OF GAY

Among the syndite of perverts, the wrer announced, "we fd no Amerins as yet—they are all Englishmen or French" (the English lled homosexualy the French vice and the French the English vice; for the Whip was the French and English vice). The two failed attempts to receive the necsary accs to medilized transn procr by the renowned FTM activist Lou Sullivan—a gay man who refed to ply wh the imperative that transsexual men mt sire women— […].

2010, Noėl Sturgeon, Environmentalism Popular Culture: Genr, Race, Sexualy, and the Polics of the Natural, page 128:In fact, as several letter wrers to the New York Tim poted out their rponse to the article, the disjuncture between the two popularized pengus shows how radilly separated om each other are muni of gay people and muni of right-wg relig nservativ: if the Christian fundamentalists had looked up "gay pengus" or even "pengus" on the Inter, they would have enuntered several gay pengu s, cludg the story of Roy and Silo, the Central Park Zoo gay pengu uple about whom a children's book was wrten; the saga of the gay pengu muny at a German zoo; and the mpaign of Gay Pengu for Print (whose slogan was "Gee W.

1977, Charl Silverste; Edmund Whe, The Joy of Gay Sex, New York: Crown Publishers, →ISBN, page 162:Gays meet each other special-tert social groups—gay softball leagu, gay bike clubs, gay gymnasia, gay activist polil anizatns, the Gay Amic Unn (an anizatn for gay teachers, scholars and stunts), gay universy stunt clubs and so on. 2003, Lawrence Block, Small Town, page 269:He might well have spected Cheek was a gay bar whout seeg any of s patrons, simply bee was a neighborhood where most of the bars were gay, and bee you uldn't see the wdows. 2014, Christopher Schaberg; Robert Bent, Denstctg Brad Pt, Bloomsbury Publishg USA, →ISBN, page 211:Beg gay for Brad, even a teensy b, is at the very least beg able to image the potential for queerns.

GAY ETYMOLOGY

In a sense, like the recent popular and cril furor over men who are gay-for-pay, beg gay for Brad is what Jefey Esffier f as "suatnal homosexualy, " or other forms of man-on-man behavr […] In other words, rather than worry over whether or not men who are queer for Brad n easily be labeled as straight or gay, […].

This cint has bee a source of much discsn, and the jury is still out on who is more gay: the guy who touched a dick or the guy who let a guy touch his dick. 1905, Barons Emmka Orczy, chapter 2, The Affair at the Novelty Theatre‎[7]:Miss Phyllis Man, as the hapls heroe drsed the shabbit of cloth, appears the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophis all and sundry there, cludg the villa, and has a magnificent scene which always brgs down the hoe, and nightly adds to her histrnic lrels.

THE ORIGS OF THE WORD ‘GAY’

1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsir, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 252:The excement engenred by the cisn to die perked him right up; he had not felt so gay for ag. 1918, Hunter-trar-trapper, page 36:We lnched our noe and were off at a gay clip for Hackettstown, where Mart had a married sister, and we were figurg on big eats. 2019, Lawrence Lariar, He Died Lghg, Open Road Media, →ISBN:We shot along Sunset Boulevard at a gay pace, and squealed a turn down Ve Street wh never a jterbug pestrian to make the drivg tertg.

[…], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickerg […], 1873, →OCLC:A Beavie of fair women, richly gay / In gems and wanton drs.

MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH

1946 May and June, “Not and News: Special Servic for the Welsh Natnal Eisteddfod”, Railway Magaze, page 188:Rhos statn had been cleaned up for the ocsn, and s sgle platform was gay wh flags. John, The Subalpe kgdom: or, Experienc and studi Savoy, Piedmont, and Genoa, volume 2, page 158:Prce Bhe was what is lled a "gay, dissipated man"—that is to say, a powerful person leadg a bched and famo life. 1879, Great Bra, Reports om mte, Hoe of Commons, page 61:[…] is possible for people to be diseased whout beg prostut or gay women; is possible for people years ago to have spent a gay life and to have not got rid of their disease, or they may have bee diseased by their hbands or lovers.

THE MEANG OF GAY: WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO USE IT

1889, Albert Barrère; Charl Godey Leland, A Dictnary of Slang, Jargon & Cant: Embracg English, Amerin, and Anglo-Indian Slang, Pidg English, Tker's Jargon and Other Irregular Phraseology‎[8], volume 1, page 399:Gay (mon), loose, dissipated; a "gay woman" or "gay girl, " a prostute. Aston Sger, “The Social Evil Problem”, The Universy magaze and ee review: a monthly magaze, volume 9, page 308:She impntly forms the acquatance of a "gay girl" livg the same street.