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By: RYAN LEE
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Have you ever partied at one of Atlanta’s many urning nightclubs or attended a tribade rights rally? Even if you didn’t realize it, the odds are high that you have — especially since you’re reading a homophile newspaper.
Since the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, there has been a continuous evolution of terms used to describe men who love men, who were coined “urnings” by German researcher Karl Ulrich in the 1860s, and women who are attracted to women, who used to be known as “tribades” during the 17th century.
With mainstream society committed to using derogatory terms for sexual minorities such as “sodomite” and “queer,” gay people were often compelled to create more affirming labels, said Kira Hall, an associate professor of linguistics and anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Kira Hall, a linguistics professor at the University of
Colorado, said creating and finding comfortable labels is a common
experience among marginalized groups. (Photo courtesy University of
Colorado)
“What historical linguistics shows is that any time you have a term associated with a marginalized group, that term, over time, will take on a negative connotation because the group itself is marginalized and seen in a negative way,” Hall said.
The “semantic pejoration” of terms that describe people with same-sex attractions fuels a cycle where people are constantly looking for a safe, validating label,she added.
Many people assume the evolution of language ended when the term “gay” gained colloquial currency in the middle of the last century.
“‘Gay’ is only like 30-40 years old, so in terms of it being a socially collective term, it’s not that old,” said Cleo Manago, who is credited with developing the “same-gender loving” term and identity for black people in the early 1990s.
“I thought the word ‘loving’ was important — to be a normal way of self-reference, a normal way of contextualizing your sexuality and giving you a sense of internal affirmation of your loving,” said Manago, CEO of AmAASI Health & Cultural Centers in Los Angeles.
“I never felt fully affirmed, if affirmed at all, by gay culture,” said Manago, who added his belief is one that many blacks feel similarly. “We need a terminology and a way of being that came from us and that affirms us.”
English philosopher Jeremy Bentham was one of the first advocates to link the mobilization of homosexuals with the creation of an affirming label for that previously unconnected group of people.
“It is by the power of names, of signs originally arbitrary and insignificant, that the course of the imagination has in great measure been guided,” Bentham wrote in 1814, according to “Toward Stonewall,” by University of Virginia history professor Nicholas Edsall.
At least a half-dozen terms, most of them pejorative slang, were popularly used to describe people with same-sex desires before the 20th century: pederasts, buggeries, fairies, and sodomites for men, tribades and Sapphos for women.
The term homosexual became vogue during the latter half of the 1800s, and was embraced by many interested in establishing an identity beyond their sexual acts, according to Edsall.
“The sodomite, in short, was defined by what he did,” Edsall wrote. “The homosexual, on the other hand, is defined by his sexual orientation, by what he is and not by what he does.”
Atlanta resident Ron Floda, 52, remembers when homosexual competed with queer as the term du jour to describe people with same-sex desires. Floda recalled feeling the relief and excitement when people began referring to themselves as gay.
“I prefer ‘gay,’ it’s more comfortable and not as negative as some of the other words used to be,” Floda said.
The term “gay” has always been available to 27-year-old Barry Strain, who considers the label an important part of his identity, “but not overwhelmingly so.”
“I think it’s a nice, most neutral term for that entire grouping,” Strain said.
Media outlets often strive to use terms that are most acceptable to minority groups, and since 1977, the Associated Press style book — the industry gold standard — has recommended using “gay” instead of “homosexual.” One of the last remaining holdouts in the media was the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper that ...
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