When did the word gay change from happy to homosexual

My Reads. As an article on the website of The New England Journal of Medicine mentions, it was only in that homosexuality was deleted from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, thus changing the view that it was a behavioural disorder.

On Thursday, as the Supreme Court decriminalised homosexuality, reading down the controversial British-era section of the penal code, Mumbai-based Arnab Nandy took to social media to express his joy, as many across the country and the world were doing.

the word lsquo Gay : Still, how did gay come to mean homosexual? Let's find out

The word “gay” seems to have its origins around the 12th century in England, derived from the Old French word ‘gai’, which in turn was probably derived from a Germanic word, though that isn’t completely known. Edit Profile. Saved Articles. A few years back, a petition was started in change.

The LGBTQ have their own vocabulary, one that often varies from city to city, and has taken on regular words that mean something quite different when applied to themselves or used within the community, says Ashok Row Kavi.

Copy link. It was around this time that the community started using the word gay to identify itself.

The term originally meant "carefree", "cheerful', or "bright and showy". Share via. Ghettoization of the term began to occur in the 60s so that today “gay” in the sense of “homosexual” has chased out all other uses of the word. Gay is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual.

But how did something that meant cheerful become synonymous with homosexuals, who have had to fight long and hard for their identity? Globally, the community preferred gay to homosexual, says Tellis, because the latter had a negative feel to it — it was a more clinical term, suggestive of a medical condition.

For years homosexuals have been fighting social discrimination and legal challenges. Sign out. According to the Washington Post article. Today I found out how ‘gay’ came to mean ‘homosexual’. Actually, gays had probably been using the term among themselves long before.

Gay men and women have been branded mentally ill and thrown out of jobs and homes. All rights reserved. The first definition of gay in the Oxford dictionary is: adjective; of a person homosexual used especially of a manthough Rao clarifies that gay is not gender specific, as lesbian is.