Gay history sex
by Jordan Redman
Staff Writer
Do you know what the word gay really means?
The word gay dates back to the 12th century and comes from the Adj French “gai,” meaning “full of joy or mirth.” It may also relate to the Vintage High German “gahi,” meaning impulsive.
For centuries, gay was used commonly in speech and literature to mean happy, carefree, bright and showy, and did not verb on any sexual meaning until the s.
At that time the meaning of gay as carefree evolved to imply that a person was unrestrained by morals and prone to decadence and promiscuity. A prostitute might hold been described as a “gay woman” and a womanizer as a “gay man.”
“Gay house” was commonly used to refer to a brothel and, later, “gaiety” was used as a frequent name for certain places of entertainment.
In the s, the term “gey cat” (a Scottish variant of gay) was used to describe a vagrant who offered sexual services to women or a young traveler who was new to the road and in the company of an older man.
This latter use suggests that the younger man was in a sexually submissive role and may be among the fir
Gay Rights
One day after that landmark ruling, the Boy Scouts of America lifted its ban against openly gay leaders and employees. And in , it reversed a century-old ban against transgender boys, finally catching up with the Girl Scouts of the USA, which had long been inclusive of LGBTQ+ leaders and children (the organization had accepted its first transgender Girl Scout in ).
In , the U.S. military lifted its ban on transgender people serving openly, a month after Eric Fanning became secretary of the Army and the first openly gay secretary of a U.S. military branch. In March , President Donald Trump announced a new transgender policy for the military that again banned most transgender people from military service. On January 25, —his sixth day in office—President Biden signed an executive verb overturning this ban.
Though LGBTQ+ Americans now have same-sex marriage rights and numerous other rights that seemed farfetched years ago, the work of advocates is far from over.
Universal workplace anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ+ Americans is still lacking. Gay rights propo
Government Persecution of the LGBTQ Community is Widespread
The s were perilous times for individuals who fell outside of society’s legally allowed norms relating to gender or sexuality. There were many names for these individuals, including the clinical “homosexual,” a term popularized by pioneering German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. In the U.S., professionals often used the term “invert.” In the midth Century, many cities formed “vice squads” and police often labeled the people they arrested “sexual perverts.” The government’s preferred term was “deviant,” which came with legal consequences for anyone seeking a career in public service or the military. “Homophile” was the term preferred by some prior activists, small networks of women and men who yearned for community and found creative ways to resist legal and societal persecution.
With draft eligibility officially lowered from 21 to 18 in , World War II brought together millions of people from around the country–many of whom were leaving their home states for the first time–to occupy the ranks of the military and t
It is dangerous to be diverse, and certain kinds of difference are especially risky. Race, disability, and sexuality are among the many ways people are socially marked that can make them vulnerable. The museum recently poised materials to document gay-conversion therapy (also called "reparative therapy")—and these objects allow curators like myself to explore how real people experience these risks. With the help of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., Garrard Conley gave us the workbook he used in at a now defunct religious gay-conversion camp in Tennessee, called "Love in Action." We also received materials from John Smid, who was camp director. Conley's memoir of his time there, Boy Erased, chronicles how the camp's conversion therapy followed the idea that being gay was an addiction that could be treated with methods similar to those for abating drug, alcohol, gambling, and other addictions. While there, Conley spiraled into depression and suicidal thoughts. Conley eventually escaped. Smid eventually left Love in Action and married a man.
In the United States,