Is It OK to Say "Gay"? - GOOD

Contents:

• WHAT DO ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ ACTUALLY SAY?
• HERE'S WHAT FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL WOULD DO AND WHAT WOULDN'T DO
• WHAT THE BILL DUBBED ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ BY CRICS ACTUALLY SAYS
• 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL BE LAW FLORIDA, BANNG SEXUAL ORIENTATN STCTN OM K-3
• WHAT WORDS CAN I SAY TO DECLARE THAT I’M GAY?
• DESANTIS-BACKED 'DONT SAY GAY' BILL SPARKS OUTRAGE
• STRICTLY LEGAL: SU OVER 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL FAILS
• LET’S SAY GAY
• STUNTS CHALLENGE ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ LAWS AMID WAVE OF ANTI-LGBTQ LEGISLATN

WHAT DO ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ ACTUALLY SAY?

\n Explorg the different meangs of a ntroversial word “gay” is everywhere you look the days.

Gay activists support gay rights such as gay marriage, while gay-bashers prott all thgs gay, cludg the gayby boom. There’s also been a rash of suicis volvg gay youngsters who were bullied—which is perhaps why the trailer for The Dilemma ught major flak.

Are gay. I mean, not homosexual gay, but, you know, my-parents-are-chaperong-the-dance gay. Most people are very aware of the meang of “gay” as happy or lame, but the word has had an astoundg range of other meangs as well.

HERE'S WHAT FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL WOULD DO AND WHAT WOULDN'T DO

What “gay” means pends entirely on your time perd and perspective, and the days, perspective n be hard to fd. The origal sense of “gay” was entirely posive. ” The sense of “gay” as happy or merry dat om the 1400s and spired some bizarrely specific sens, such as “of a horse: lively, prancg” and “of a dog's tail: rried high or erect.

” In several earlier fns, we n see the seeds of “gay” begng to mean homosexual, if only bee the meangs f wh what would bee gay stereotyp. “Wh gay abandon” started meang “wh reckls abandon” the mid-1800s. “Gay” also meant somethg like “prostute-y” the 1800s, as a “gay woman” or “gay girl” was what we ll a sex worker the days.

Another sense, ed sce the 1500s, fs gay stereotyp like a rctnist glove: “... Charl Victor Fremy was sometim very, very gay. ” As far as we n tell, “gay” only started meang homosexual the early 1940s.

WHAT THE BILL DUBBED ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ BY CRICS ACTUALLY SAYS

They were together then and traveled to another place and stayed there and were gay there...

Not very gay there, jt gay there. They were both gay there.

'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL BE LAW FLORIDA, BANNG SEXUAL ORIENTATN STCTN OM K-3

” The earlit OED exampl of “gay” meang homosexual are om 1941.

This example om that year shows jt how -flux (and vert) the meang was: “Supposg one met a stranger on a tra om Boston to New York and wanted to fd out whether he was ‘wise’ or even homosexual. One might ask: ‘Are there any gay spots Boston? ’ And by a slight accent put on the word ‘gay’ the stranger, if wise, would unrstand that homosexual rorts were meant.

WHAT WORDS CAN I SAY TO DECLARE THAT I’M GAY?

” Meanwhile, exampl of “gay” meang “lame” don't turn up until the 1970s. ’ ‘It looks gay.

Let’s take another look at them: “Ladi and gentleman, electric gay. On the one hand, ’s 100 percent unrstandable why GLAAD is a ltle sensive to anythg that sounds like gay-bashg. If I uld, I would personally bash gay-bashers wh a nuclear bomb.

DESANTIS-BACKED 'DONT SAY GAY' BILL SPARKS OUTRAGE

Though this has been wily referred to as a “gay joke, ” I don’t see any joke at all. Isn’t Vghn’s clarifitn—“not homosexual gay, but, you know, my-parents-are-chaperong-the-dance gay”—equivalent to the famo Sefeld “Not that there’s anythg wrong wh that”?

I also have trouble seeg what the “lame” sense of “gay” has to do wh homosexualy. Do anyone the world thk gay folks are lame? As I unrstand the homophobic viewpot, gay people are nsired sners and evil-doers—a lot worse than lame, right?

If the llective gay people of the world uld magilly transform all “gays are abomatns” sentiment to “gays are like, totally lame, ” I have a feelg they would take that barga, bee nobody bothers to legally discrimate agast the lame. Maybe gay people n miserate wh the physilly lame, who lost the battle over that word years ago. The dislike of “gay” is an awful lot like the dislike of “retard”—both words, when ed sultgly, are hated for reasons that are very passnate.

STRICTLY LEGAL: SU OVER 'DON'T SAY GAY' BILL FAILS

Siarly, wh so much real, horrible homophobia the world, tryg to censor the “lame” sense of gay is a waste of energy and a losg battle. And kd of gay.? Today, we have an analysis of a piece of tn legislatn Florida that crics have referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” we have news of our own: We’re makg some chang to the Edutn Briefg.

LET’S SAY GAY

See below for Asenc-Rhe/Tampa Bay Tim, via Associated PrsA close read of ‘Don’t Say Gay’Gov.

STUNTS CHALLENGE ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ LAWS AMID WAVE OF ANTI-LGBTQ LEGISLATN

Ron DeSantis of Florida is expected to sign Hoe Bill 1557, a proposed law that supporters ll the “Parental Rights Edutn” bill and opponents refer to as the “Don’t Say Gay” lleague Dana Goldste has done a close readg of the bill self, which is about much more than gay rights.

Sentence has earned the bill the “Don’t Say Gay” nickname:L 97-101: Classroom stctn by school personnel or third parti on sexual orientatn or genr inty may not occur krgarten through gra 3 or a manner that is not age appropriate or velopmentally appropriate for stunts acrdance wh state impact is clear enough: Instctn on genr and sexualy would be nstraed all gras. That uld disurage a teacher om speakg about gay fai wh the whole class, even if some stunts have gay bill also targets mental health and unselg servic — a place where stunts often have difficult nversatns about genr inty and sexualy, pecially if they stggle to talk about those nversatns at as Florida revis s school unselg standards, adopted 2010, which affirm genr and sexual diversy unselg. But Florida’s Parental Rights Edutn act — which crics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — has sudnly sparked a natnal war of recent weeks, lears of global rporatns, edorial boards of major newspapers and Hollywood actors have all weighed on the proposed legislatn, wh some llg “eply disturbg” and others “nonntroversial.