In the 19th Century, the
term that had originally meant mirthful or joyous acquired a new
meaning. Female prostitutes were called (derogatorily) "gay
women", and men who were considered playboys were called
"gay," too. Early in the 20th Century, some American men and
women adopted the word as a label for themselves, preferring it to the
clinical "homosexual." The word entered broad use in the
1960s and 1970s as the media responded to gays' demands that the word
replace "homosexual" in their news reports. The
venerable New York Times held out, but even there, "gay" was
ultimately accepted in 1989.
Just as African American
leaders in the 1960s demanded to be called black, not Negro, American gay
liberationists fought to be called gay since "homosexual"
was the word psychiatrists used to define gays as mentally ill.
Today many women eschew the
term gay, preferring lesbian because it highlights both their gender and
their sexual difference. Another group objects to the term because
it seems to exclude transsexuals and other non-gay sexual dissidents,
and prefer to call themselves queer.
