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Gay

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For people whose family name is Gay see the list of people by name. See also Gay, Georgia, and G-A-Y (a London nightclub).

Gay, in addition to meaning "merry", "joyous", or "glad", also means homosexual.

The word gay has had a sexual meaning since at least the nineteenth century (and possibly earlier). In Victorian England, female and male prostitutes were called "gay" because they dressed gaily. Eventually, "gay boys" (renters) became used as a term for any male homosexual. Whilst females would usually describe themselves as lesbian, some resent this term and also call themselves gay. In the United States, the term may have arisen from the hobo community: a young hobo, a "gay cat" or "geycat", often had to befriend an older more experienced hobo for education and survival. Such a relationship was implicitly sexual, hence the term "gay cat" came to mean "a young homosexual".

A quote from Gertrude Stein's "Miss Furr & Mrs. Skeene" (1922) is possibly the first traceable use of the word, although it is not altogether clear whether she uses the word to mean lesbianism or happiness.

They were ...gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, ... they were quite regularly gay.

Noel Coward's 1929 musical Bitter Sweet has the first uncontested use of the word: in the song Green Carnation, four overdressed, 1890s dandies sing:

Pretty boys, witty boys, You may sneer
At our disintegration.
Haughty boys, naughty boys,
Dear, dear, dear!
Swooning with affectation...
And as we are the reason
For the "Nineties" being gay,
We all wear a green carnation.

Coward uses the 'gay nineties' as a double entendre. The song title alludes to the gay playwright Oscar Wilde, who famously wore a green carnation himself.

Gay can be used exclusively or inclusively. The exclusive meaning refers only to male homosexuals. The inclusive meaning refers at a minimum to homosexual men and lesbians, and arguably to bisexuals, and, when used in the phrase the Gay community it may include transgendered and transsexuals, and possibly intersexuals as well, though this is also a subject of some debate. See also: LGBT and queer

Gay originally was used purely as an adjective ("he is a gay man" or "he is gay"). Gay is now also used as a collective noun: "Gays are opposed to that policy" but rarely as a singular noun "he is a gay."

It has been claimed that "gay" was derived as an acronym for "Good As You", but this is a fake etymology based on a backronym.

Another folk etymology accrues to Gay Street, in New York's West Village -- a nexus of homosexual culture. The term also seems, from documentary evidence, to have existed in New York as a code word in the 1940s, where the question, "Are you gay?" would denote more than it might have seemed to outsiders.

When used as an adjective not describing a person who is part of the gay community, (e.g. "that hat is so gay"), the term "gay" is purely pejorative and deeply offensive. The derogatory implication is that the object (or person) in question is inferior, weak, effeminate, or just stupid. This pejorative is common among young people who may not link the term to homosexuality, much as some people may not link the term "Jew down" (to be talked down in price) to Jewish people or "I was gypped" (I was cheated) to Gypsies.

Another spelling, "ghey", is sometimes found on the Internet and is supposedly used either to insult without reference to homosexuality or to bypass chat room censors. See also: fag.

According to the Safe Schools Coalition of Washington's Glossary for school employees: "Homosexual: Avoid this term; it is clinical, distancing and archaic. Sometimes appropriate in referring to behavior (although same-sex is the preferred adj.). When referring to people, as opposed to behavior, homosexual is considered derogatory and the terms gay and lesbian are preferred, at least in the Northwest."

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Gay.
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