When did the word "gay" become synonymous with "homosexual?"

[Renew Deal]

I just found an old craft magazine called "How to make Gay Colorful Costumes of Crepe Paper." It's from 1939.



There's also "The Good Wifes Guide" from 1955 that says "Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him."

When did the use of the word gay change or was it always a synonym for "homosexual."

[Zorra]

1. here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay

[Renew Deal]

4. Thanks!

I can't believe this goes back to the 1600's!

[dipsydoodle]

2. This will become

a matter of who you what to believe. Its a subject which becomes an issue whenever the use of a word is given a new meaning / power. In this case it also came to mean stupid.

[MineralMan]

3. It's been around for a long time, but didn't lose its meaning

of happy and celebratory until fairly recently. Remember the Flintstone's theme: "We'll have a gay old time." I don't know the dates of that series.

I used to volunteer in my local library, and every once in a while, the sound of giggling would come from one of the aisles in the stacks. It was always a group of middle-schoolers looking at a book with the title, "Gay Parties for All Occasions," published in the 1950s.

[Renew Deal]

5. I remember that with the Flintstones

I looked it up. The cartoon ran from 1960-1966. But it was still popular when I was a kid in the 70's and 80's.

[formernaderite]

7. I'm a bit older

I heard queer in the sixties and fag in the 70's... gay must be quite a bit newer.

[Kurovski]

12. The sixties stage play Camelot used it in at least one song..."The Lusty Month of May."

meaning "light and celebratory"

"It's wild, it's gay" / "It's mad, it's gay"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pljyjiIMH9o

[RadiationTherapy]

6. When we began being told hetero marriage is misery.

[Botany]

8. From the Flintstones

Barney & Fred were very tight. They could make the bed rock.

"Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyabba-dabba-doooooooo!"
Flintstones... Meet the Flintstones,
They're a modern stoneage family.
From the town of Bedrock,
They're a page right out of history.
Let's ride with the family down the street.
Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet.
When you're with the Flintstones,
have a yabba dabba doo time,
a dabba doo time,
we'll have a gay old time

[Kurovski]

9. In the 1938 screwball comedy "Bringing up Baby" Cary Grant's character

ends up with only a peignoir to wear and another character asks "What are you doing in that ridiculous get-up?" Grant replies in exasperation "I've suddenly gone gay!" (dialog approximated)


EDIT: here, from the wikipedia link in post #1:

"... Bringing Up Baby (1938) was the first film to use the word gay in apparent reference to homosexuality. In a scene where Cary Grant's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he must wear a lady's feathery robe. When another character inquires about his clothes, he responds "Because I just went gay...all of a sudden!"<11> However, since this was a mainstream film at a time when the use of the word to refer to homosexuality would still be unfamiliar to most film-goers, the line can also be interpreted to mean "I just decided to do something frivolous." There is much debate about what Grant meant with the ad-lib (the line was not in the script)..."

[ellenfl]

10. as a former 'fag hag', i don't believe that the term 'gay' became

mainstream until late in the 20th century. i have often wondered how this name change came about, as well, as my gay male friends in the 70s called themselves 'queens'. i only have anecdotal knowledge but as for the change in meaning, i think it was a term for frivolous or flighty (or flaming) which could certainly have been applied to many of the 'fairies' or 'queens' of yesteryear. perhaps the community itself started using 'gay' as an antidote to the pejorative connotation applied to the terms 'fairies', fags' and 'queens'. perhaps we have a historian here who will shed more light.

what i am curious about is why 'gay' is applied only to males?

ellen fl

[FreeState]

14. Women use gay too

It's more common for it to be used to describe males, however many women use the term too. I've never once been told by a gay woman not to call her gay. There are no terms used in the main stream that mean just gay men that I can think of (unlike women, lesbian etc). Ofcource there are terms used in the community but nothing to describe gay men as a whole.

[frebrd]

15. "Gay" being applied primarily to males is a more recent thing...

My recollection from the fifties is of using the terms "gay guys" and "gay girls". Quite a while later the Lesbian Feminist movement arose and they resented being lumped in with the males; they preferred to be called Lesbians.

[frebrd]

11. I remember "gay" being in common use among gay people.........

in the mid-fifties, and I know it was far from being a new usage then. I don't think straights were commonly aware of that usage until the gay rights movement gathered momentem and press coverage after the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969.

[gauguin57]

13. OED entry, with the different definitions and origins.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/resources/oed/50093144(2).htm

(you may have to cut and paste because of the odd () marks in the address)

[frebrd]

18. The problem in the URL was the space before the left parenthesis

[Cid_B]

16. I heard it was a Thursday....

[Kurovski]

17. LOL.

:D

[Mnemosyne]

20. Nope, But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day, Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.n/t

:hi::evilgrin:

[Kurovski]

21. That's me baby! Sunday's child, and I'm "good n' gay" alright.

[Mnemosyne]

26. I posted it while sitting here with one of my best friends in the world, also a Sunday baby and

an amazing man all around. He told me he was gay first and is closer than any 'family' I've ever had, except for daughter and grandsons. :hi::hug:

We spontaneously burst out singing dirty parody songs and try to laugh together, no matter how twisted, at least once a day. We are each others sanity touchstones. :evilgrin:

Edited to add:

He thought it was the Flintstones. :)

[Kurovski]

30. Hehe!

you guys sound like my kind of species, and what-not. :hi: :D

[Mnemosyne]

32. You single, Kurovski? He is wonderful and will hopefully be single again soon.

:evilgrin::hi:

[Stevenmarc]

19. The day they created colorful costumes out of crepe paper

There is no way anyone with a scintilla of heterosexuality created that publication

[Kurovski]

22. LOL!!!

I think even the word "scintilla" was created by my/our? forefathers. :rofl:

On my god. All I'm doing is gaily laughing today here on DU, and I have to go do the marketing.

"Marketing".

[Gormy Cuss]

23. As I recall, it in the 1970s that gay became restricted to homosexual description

In the 1960s homosexual (or the derogatory "queer") were much more common.

Kids used to say "That's so queer!" in the same manner later generations say "That's so gay." I remember because my mother wouldn't let us use queer that way and explained the derogatory connotation.

[madmom]

24. Went to school with a girl named Gay, that and happy was the only way I ever heard it used.

[JackBeck]

25. The word “gay” was first used in the 1920s in the gay underground.

After the Stonewall riots the use of the word “gay” represented a new unapologetic defiance – as an antonym for “straight.”

For many gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, the word “homosexual” has painful implications and strongly reject the term.

Homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) until 1973, at which point it was replaced by “sexual orientation disturbance” and then “ego-dystonic homosexuality.” It was not until 1987 that homosexuality was entirely dropped. However, “homosexuality” is a term still used in research.

Some gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals may still refer to themselves as “homosexual”, but because of the association of homosexuality as a mental illness, many gay men and lesbians have rejected the term in favor of different, self chosen one.

[Withywindle]

29. And of course the homophobic fundie groups still insist on using 'homosexual'

precisely BECAUSE of that negative, pathologizing connotation. American Family Association even uses a find-and-replace program on their "news" site.

Here's a blog post about an article they ran a couple of years ago about that famous runner, "Tyson Homosexual."


http://revealingerrors.com/tyson_homosexual


Read it and :rofl: and then :cry:

[JackBeck]

34. I still cringe anytime I read or hear someone use 'homosexual.'

And your link? Revolting. I can't believe there are people that have lucrative careers out of doing what they do to us.

[InvisibleTouch]

27. I first heard it used as a pejorative in the mid-1970's...

...when I was in grade school. I knew the "happy" meaning, so I was puzzled as to why a classmate was using it like a taunt or insult against a fellow student. Asked my dad, "What does 'gay' mean?" And he said, "Happy, cheerful." "No, the other meaning," I persisted, knowing there had to be more to it. With some discomfort he then told me about the homosexual definition. I still couldn't figure out why it was used as an insult, but that was my first encounter with the term. (Ironically, the student who was being taunted did turn out in later years to be gay. He was a good friend of mine for many years who died around the turn of the millennium, possibly from self-induced causes.)

[trackfan]

28. I would guess it's some time later than this advertisement:

[Kurovski]

31. Fruit or vegetable label?

I don't recall, but I may have an old gay cock packed away somewhere.

[WinkyDink]

33. The Oxford English Dictionary will answer all etymological questions. :-)

http://oed.com/public/redirect/welcome-to-the-new-oed-online

I actually wrote a college paper on just this topic.

[lunatica]

35. When the gay community started calling themselves that

Just like the word black. Blacks started calling themselves black and in both cases everyone else picked it up. I remember both changes.