Something that popped into my head today, while reading through numerous Gay/Lesbian related threads was the interesting division of terms.
So, first of all, why is there apparently either a Gay label for men and a Lesbian label for women who have partners of the same sex? I’ve also understood that Gay, in Gay Pride for example, can refer to both men and women.
In addition, why is a man Gay, while a woman is A Lesbian?
Just curious.
Gay can refer to both, yes. The word “lesbian” derives from Lesbos, which is a Greek Island. The dictionary I have here says that the term “alludes to the supposed homosexuality of the poet Sappho, who lived there.”
Nowadays, the term sapphic means “of or pertaining to lesbianism.”
Used to be there were just gays. If you look at documents from mid-century you’ll see references to “gay girls” and “gay women” and the like. Even in the early days of the “homophile” movement some women identified as “lesbian” (from Lesbos, home of Sappho) rather than “gay.” A famous early journalist, for example, went by the name “Lisa Ben” which is an anagram of “lesbian.”
The lesbian label became popularized with the growth of the women’s liberation movement. Women involved in the gay and women’s movements spent a lot of time trying to decide how to prioritize the two. Out of that grew, among other things, the lesbian separatist movement. It was through lesbian separatism that “lesbian” became the common and accepted term for homosexual women. As the gay community tried to become more inclusive of women the word “lesbian” was added to many organizations as a show of inclusiveness.
This is a distillation of about three thousand pages of queer history that I’ve read over the last decade or so, so if you want more detailed information I could put together a reading list.
Was the term “gay” used in mid-century? I had thought it was newer than that.
Nope. “Gay” was first used to mean “homosexual” over a century ago. You can hear Cary Grant use the term in “Bringing Up Baby” from the late 30s.
It remained a slang term used only among gays until the 1960s, so the average person never heard it in that context before then.
It was a quick way to determine a stranger’s sexual interests. You could, for example, ask someone, “What do you do for a gay evening on the town?” A straight man would give one answer, and a homosexual would know you meant something else.
For what it’s worth, here are the American Psychological Association’s guidelines for avoiding heterosexual bias in language, which has something to offer in response to the OP’s question.
And just for shits and giggles, some other terms from days past: invert, third sex, uranian, androgyne, similisexual. And there’s the baser slang terms like molly, lizzie, bird and if you can believe it, backgammon player.
The word “homosexual” was coined in 1868.
That’s pretty sweet guys. Thanks for lending a helping hand.