That’s So Gay! Or is it?
An Exploration of the Meaning of This Happy-Go-Lucky, Flamboyant and Pejorative Piece of the English Lexicon.Once upon a time there was a quaint village and all of the children in this village lived joyous, gay lives. And all of the villagers were filled with abundant gaiety at the gayness of the children. But one day, one of the children sat down to have a serious conversation with his parents, and told them he was gay. Well this sent the boy’s parents into a fit, and they cast him from their home. When the other children heard about this episode, they found the whole situation to be rather asinine. In conversation one day around the lunch table about the matter, one student remarked, “That’s so gay that his parent’s would freak out about his being gay. I mean, before he told them, everything was still gay. And then they had to go and act all gay. Like seriously?”
And so the dilemma goes … What is gay? Or what was gay once upon a time? And even, what will gay be? This paper will explore the following meanings of “gay”:
- Marked by cheerfulness and jubilance
- Identifier for homosexuals
- A defamatory term for anything considered stupid or irrelevant
It is the prediction of the author that “gay” pertaining in some form to homosexuality is the strongest current usage, but that a new usage as a derogatory term unrelated to actual homosexuality is emerging and will quite possibly become the dominant use of the word.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,make the Yule-tide GAY!
The oldest meaning of “gay” is that of being: “keenly alive and exuberant: having or inducing high spirits" (Merriam-Webster, 2003, p. 518). This meaning is rarely used in modern English, it’s preservation can be attributed largely to archaic works of the English language that have frozen register, such as Christmas carols and phrases such as “having a gay old time.” This usage of the word has more-or-less fallen by the wayside in modern English, and is typically only seen in the kinds of works mentioned above.
The usage of this term shifted largely in the 20th century to become associated with homosexuality.
Don We Now Our GAY Apparel…
There are a number of meanings that “gay” shifted through during the time between it’s conception as cheerful, light hearted, etc and when it arrived at homosexuality, but we will fast forward through those for now. Before we look at “gay” as an identifier for homosexuals, we must first look at the climate around homosexuality in the mid and late-20th century, when the word took on that role.
The 1960s was a period of immense cultural revolutions in the United States. In this ten year period the country saw the Civil Rights Movement, the Sexual Revolution, and the Gay Rights Movement, to name a few. June 27th, 1969 served as the combustive day that launched homosexuality to center stage in America. At this point in time in America, police raids on venues known to cater to or be congregation points of homosexuals were common practice. However on June 27th, 1969, the police raid on the Stonewall Inn of New York, New York did not follow the common series of events. On that night, the homosexual patrons of the bar fought back resulting in three days of rebellion, brawling, and utter pandemonium between gays, lesbians, their supporters, and the New York City police, with thousands of people involved (Duberman & Kopkind, 1993).
Since the dawn of time homosexuality has been a hot topic: the stuff of Biblical legend, the rationale for brutal murders in various cultures, labeled as sin and later as mental disorder. In fact, it was not until 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from their list of psychiatric disorders. Homosexuality was then re-classified as an eligible sexuality; unfortunately, this classification was short lived, as homosexuality was soon re-classified as a biological abnormality (De Cecco, p. 106-107).
This is the climate in which the term “gay” came to serve prevalently as an identifier for homosexuals—a time of riots, political uproar, when homosexuality was first considered a psychiatric disorder, and later became recognized as a biological abnormality. How flattering. Within this context we can see that the general attitude towards homosexuality is one of contempt, and in order to understand how the use of a term originally meaning light-hearted and carefree could become associated with such a group of people, we must look briefly to the meanings of “gay” falling between the time of “gay” as light-heartedness and “gay” as homosexual.
According to The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, “gay” has meant leading
an immoral life (1998), “gay” is also defined as “bright, lively… brilliant in color (p. 518)” by Merriam-Webster. It is from this series definitions that “gay” came to be associated with homosexuality. According to the general public at the time, homosexuals were leading immoral lives, and one hallmark of the stereotype has always been flamboyant attire, often brightly colored. This term of insult was reclaimed by homosexuals however as a self-referent (Weinberg, p. 124). According to Garner’s modern American usage dictionary, the homosexual community’s claiming of “gay” took place somewhere in the mid-20th century. Garner continues on to say that despite any existing opposition, “gay” has come to universally mean homosexual. Warren (1974) interviews several members of the gay community and most are in agreement that “homosexual” is tied to a clinical sense of sexuality, whereas “gay” is tied to a cultural identity. Fletcher and Russell’s research defines gay as: “A self-label for a man whose sexual and emotional attractions are for other men (p. 36).” While there may not exist a consensus on where the line between sexual association and cultural association is to be drawn lexically, one aspect of all these definitions is constant: some tie—whether sexually, culturally, or both—exists between “gay” and the homosexual population.
This reclaiming of “gay” for homosexuals functions similarly to the reclaiming of “nigger” by African-Americans. In his article “Who Can Say ‘Nigger’? And Other Considerations,” Kennedy alludes to a work by black author Clarence Major in which Major illuminates the issue as follows:
“When used by a white person in addressing a black person,” he noted (nigger is usually) offensive and disparaging.” Major quickly added, however, that when “used by black people among themselves, (nigger) is a racial term with undertones of warmth and good will—reflecting . . . a tragicomic sensibility that is aware of black history.” (p. 89)
This type of reclaiming of derogatory labels is not uncommon, if one googles “reclaiming derogatory labels,” within the first two pages one will be bombarded with community chatrooms, dissertations, and publications reclaiming the use of bitch, cunt, and whore for women; squaw for Native American women; nigger for African-Americans; dyke and bulldyke for lesbians; fag(got) for gay men; paki for individuals of Pakistani heritage, and the list goes on. The phenomenon is that a pejorative label is assigned to a group considered deviant or undesirable in some way, and that label is often reclaimed by that group as a symbol of empowerment and attempts to strip the majority of it’s power to insult the minority group. This is known as semantic inversion (Jacobs, 2002).
That’s So GAY!
There is a growing trend in the usage of the word “gay.” The phrase “that’s so gay” has come to serve as a substitute slang term used to mark things as “lame, retarded, stupid, fucked up,” etc. In fact, 69% of high school students report hearing the phrase “that’s so gay” on a regular basis (GLSEN, 18). In 2006 this common usage got British radio personality Chris Moyles into a bit of a snare as well, but was more-or-less bailed out on account of the phrase being “used to mean ‘lame’ or rubbish". This is a widespread current usage amongst young people (Baker, 153).
Lalor and Short (2007) report that usage of this meaning of "gay" varied and was signaled by certain linguistic behaviors. Their study showed that a group of 18-30 year-old subjects understand "gay" differently depending on whether the subject is animate or inanimate and depending on whether "gay" is accompanied by an intensifier ("that girl is gay" vs. "that girl is so gay"). When used to describe an inanimate object, "gay" is understood by this group to mean "'stupid,' 'lame,' or 'boring'" (GLSEN, 18); when used to describe a person, it is understood to refer to their attraction to a particular sex ("your brother's shirt is gay" vs. "your brother's gay"). When "gay" is not accompanied by an intensifier, it is understood to refer to a person's attraction to a particular sex; when "gay" is accompanied by an intensifier it is understood to convey the pejorative meaning.
Having a GAY Old Time?
In summary, it is often remarkably difficult to draw absolute boundaries around the meaning of a word—especially if that word has shifted through multiple usages in a seemingly short time frame. Such is the case with “gay.”
“Gay” has shifted from an adjective denoting a state of lighthearted jubilation, to adjective meaning immoral or promiscuous, to an adjective meaning homosexual, to a noun meaning homosexual male, and is undergoing yet another shift to an adjective form descriptive of anything considered “uncool.”
The world, culture, and societies in which we live are constantly changing, and so too must our language and our usage of the language. Who is to say what “gay” will become? For now, its prevalent use is as either an adjective denoting connections to homosexuality or a noun referring to a homosexual male. But the pejorative meaning has been gaining momentum, though there are several national campaigns to restrict this usage. There are connections between these meanings, and I suspect a Foucaultian analysis will flesh them out, but that is another paper (one that I intend to write).
References
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De Cecco, J.P. (1987). Homosexuality's brief recovery: from sickness to health and back
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Duberman, M., & Kopkind, A. (1993). The Night they raided stonewall. Grand Street, 44,
120-147.
Garner, B.A.(1998). A Dictionary of modern american usage. New York, NY: Oxford
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Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. (2005). From teasing to torment: school
climate in america, a survey of students and teachers. New York, NY: GLSEN. 18.
Fletcher, A.C. & Russell, S.T. (2001). Incorporating issues of sexual orientation in the
classroom: challenges and solutions. Family Relations, 50 (1), 36.
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Jacobs, A. T. (2002). Appropriating a slur: Semantic looping in the African-American usage of nigga. M/C Jounral: A Journal of Media and Culture, 5 (4). Retrieved from: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0208/semantic.php
Kennedy, R.L. (1999-2000). Who can say “nigger”? and other considerations. The
Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 26, 86-96.
Merriam-Webster. (2003). Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).
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Warren, C. A. B. (1974). Identity and community in the gay world. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Weinberg, G. (1983). Society and the healthy homosexual. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
