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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Gay article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
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Edit request on 18 February 2013

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Independent scholar

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: consensus not to move the page, per the discussion below. Hatnotes or changes to the lede can be discussed separately. Dekimasuよ! 07:27, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Gay → Gay (terminology) – My understanding is that the primary use of "Gay" to refer to Homosexuality, not to refer to the word "Gay" itself. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 06:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I think there some misunderstanding of my proposal. I'm proposing we move this to "Gay (terminology)" so that we can redirect "gay" to Homosexuality. This article is not about gay people (the Homosexuality article is), this article is about the English word "gay" itself. IMO if a reader looks up "gay", it is far more likely he is trying to find the article about gay people then it is that he is trying the find the article about the word "gay", so (per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC) that's where we should send him. That is the only reason I think this page should be moved.

For readers who really were looking for the article about the word "gay", a hatnote on the Homosexuality article can direct them to this article. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:31, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Oppose (I think). Maybe I'm missing something, but the article is about the word and its usage. What would be accomplished by moving it? Rivertorch (talk) 07:31, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
So a reader who looks up "Gay" will arrive at what the article he's most likely trying to find (the article about Homosexulity), rather then an article it's much less likely he's trying to find (the article about the word "gay"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk • contribs) 08:10, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
In that case, definitely oppose. "Gay" is primarily an adjective; it is a synonym for homosexual (adj.), not "homosexuality" (n.). Gayness (not a commonly used word) currently redirects to Gay, and I could see some sense in pointing it to Homosexuality instead. Rivertorch (talk) 16:12, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Good point. You haven't quite convinced me, but I see the opposers point of view now. Previously, I was a little perplexed by the opposes. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 17:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, the first line of the article says: "Gay is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual". It is therefore highly unlikely that a person looking up "gay" will have any trouble finding the article on homosexuality, if that is what they are looking for. bd2412 T 13:43, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
My concern isn't that people would trouble finding the article on homosexuality. My concern is that this article deviates from the regular practice; regular practice is to redirect a term to its primary topic (homosexuality in this case) and link to secondary topics (the word "gay" in this case) in hatnotes. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:51, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
There is no such "regular practice". The primary topic of this article is word-use, not homosexuality. Redirecting "gay" to "homosexuality" would just have the effect of taking people away from the primary topic of the article. If people want to look up homosexuality, they will not type "gay" - gay people, gay men, gays, even. All these redirects, as it happens, point to different articles. A case could be made for changing the redirect of gays. Paul B (talk) 13:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
That's not what I meant by "primary topic". I meant the it in the sense of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, in this case for the title "gay" (homosexuality IMO), not the topic of this article (which is or course the term itself). I disagree that people wouldn't type "gay" to look up homosexuality, but I think we'll just need to agree to disagree on that. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 17:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Paul, I do think that a lot of people, likely the vast majority, who are looking for an article on homosexuality come to this article first; some even come to this article looking specifically for an article on male homosexuality, as this and this discussion show. Typing in gay is quicker and this article primarily focuses on the homosexuality aspect of the term because that is the primary meaning of the term, a fact that the lead currently notes. That stated, I agree with you that the primary topic of this article is word-use. The fact that the word-use is primarily about homosexuality does not make that any less true. I'm with BD2412, who is very experienced with WP:Disambiguation and commonly contributes to that guideline (which WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is a part of), on not seeing a clear need to change this article's title to Gay (terminology). Flyer22 (talk) 17:15, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, the topic of this article is the term "gay" itself, nobody disputes that. As for people looking for homosexuality and male homosexuality, we already have the hatnote (and lead sentence) pointing to homosexuality, and we could solve the male homosexuality issue by adding male homosexuality to the hatnote. Any objections? Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 17:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I object. Read that second discussion I linked to for why. The Male homosexuality redirect is currently flawed. Flyer22 (talk) 17:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
It may be that people type "gay" looking for "homosexual", though I doubt it (I wouldn't know how to prove it one way or the other). After all, the "gay = rubbish" usage is also now common. My main problem is that if the name is changed, what happens to "gay"? Either it redirects here, making the name change pointless, or it redirects to "homosexuality", which, in effect, hides the article from view. I don't think that's the right approach, and article titles should be straightforward. Paul B (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
As for what happens to "gay", I meant my proposal to imply that it would be redirected to "homosexual"; readers who who were looking for Gay (terminology) could go there via hatnote.
As for the Male homosexuality hatnote, that sounds like a problem with the "male homosexuality" redirect, and not the proposed hatnote. If there's a better target, then of course the redirect should be retargeted there, but the issue of what the best target is is a different issue then the hatnote. It's the hatnote's job to point readers who come here looking for male homosexuality to the male homosexuality article, on in the absence of such an article the male homosexuality {{R with potential}}. The target may at the moment be less then ideal, but that's no reason not to link to the redirect; surly that less then ideal target is better then nothing. Besides that's just a temporary condition, it will be fixed as soon as the redirect is retargeted, and we can't debate the appropriate target over hatnotes, that's wp:local consensus. The debate needs to be limited to where to target the redirect itself, it can't come up whenever someone links to it. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 19:05, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Paul, do you think that most people who type gay are looking for information about the term gay instead of information about homosexuality? If so, I can't agree with that. I think it's clear that, since the term gay primarily refers to homosexuality, people are most likely going to be looking for the topic of homosexuality when they type gay. Not for its past primary meaning of "happy or carefree," not for its meaning of "that's stupid" or "that's rubbish." People who want information about something being stupid or rubbish are surely far more likely to Google those terms instead of the word gay. This article and the vast majority of WP:Reliable sources show that the term gay most commonly refers to homosexuality. People are also much more likely to use the word gay than homosexual when referring to the fact that a person is homosexual. Not to mention the style guides that advise using the word gay as a noun instead of homosexual as a noun when it comes to referring to a person who is homosexual.
Emmette Hernandez Coleman, it barely makes any sense to me to tell readers to click on that Male homosexuality redirect for information about male homosexuality, when the Homosexuality article, which is already linked in the hatnote and in the lead, deals with the topic of male homosexuality far better than what the redirect takes readers to. Flyer22 (talk) 19:32, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
"People who want information about something being stupid or rubbish are surely far more likely to Google those terms instead of the word gay.". That statement indicates that you completely misunderstand what I said. I very doubt anyone ever types in any word seeking "information about something being stupid or rubbish". What "information" would that be? I think they type in words with a variety of motives, and that wondering why the word "gay" has come to mean "stupid or rubbish" is likely to be one of them. It's like other words that have their own articles in that respect. It's the complexity of the meanings that legitimate the articles. We wouldn't expect nigger to redirect to "African" or "black person", not just because it happens to be pejorative (which gay usually isn't), but because its history of use is the point of the article. Paul B (talk) 20:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)About the hatnote, you might have a point; I would suggest sending the redirect to WP:RFD. If you agree with me that people are most likely going to be looking for homosexuality when they type gay, why do you oppose moving this? Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 20:14, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Paul, I understood what you stated; for example, you stated, "It may be that people type 'gay' looking for 'homosexual', though I doubt it." I simply disagree with that statement, and offered examples to explain why. I disagree with the "may be" part and the notion of doubt, since I don't see how it can be doubted that people type the word gay looking for "homosexual" (whether about the term homosexual or the topic of homosexuality), especially since we get examples of people looking for such when they come to this article and since we have a hatnote to direct them to the Homosexuality article. But, like I noted, I understand your objection to moving this article to Gay (terminology).
Emmette Hernandez Coleman, I already explained above; I can't be clearer than that. Flyer22 (talk) 20:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Nobody's saying it isn't, my concern (see my response to BD2412) has nothing to do with that. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:54, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Your concern, IMO, is wholly misplaced. Paul B (talk) 13:58, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Nobody's saying there is missing content about terminology usage, and even if there were that has nothing to do with my concern. The topic of this article it the word "gay" itself, and adding content about terminology usage wouldn't change that, if that's what you mean. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 16:08, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
I see no benefit to any move at this time, as noted by others. Sportfan5000 (talk) 16:46, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
The link says "Please use "gay" or "lesbian" to describe people attracted to members of the same sex." and go's on to explain how it considers the term "homosexual" offensive. Regardless of whatever term we should use, it doesn't change that our article about people attracted to members of the same sex is Homosexuality, not gay (this article is about the word "gay" itself). The issue here is weather a reader who looks up "gay" should arrive at the article about the word "gay", or weather he should arrive at the article about people attracted to members of the same sex (regardless of whatever that article is called). If you think the article about people attracted to members of the same sex should have a title other then "Homosexuality", take that up at Talk:Homosexuality. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 00:23, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
E.H.C., your arguments haven't been persuasive, and I'd say we're entering WP:SNOW territory. Gay must not redirect to homosexuality because the words are not synonyms; as already noted, the latter is a noun and the former is (usually) an adjective. Visitors looking for information on the word "gay" would find homosexuality no help, and a hatnote there linking to Gay (terminology) would be awkward and inappropriate. On the other hand, visitors arriving at Gay but looking for information on the concept of homosexuality are immediately presented with an entirely logical hatnote pointing them in the right direction. The current setup may fall afoul of your interpretation of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but it works very well and really doesn't need fixing. Rivertorch (talk) 18:14, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Till now I was treating this as a case where "the fate of the snowball may not be immediately obvious and predictable until it has actually been placed in the infernal conditions", mostly because many of the oppose votes were strawmen (such as missing usages of the word, or people having trouble finding the homosexuality article). Agreed, "Homosexuality" is a noun and "Gay" an adjective, and that's by far the strongest argument against moving this (except perhaps Flyer22's, but I don't really understand it so I can't say how strong it is). There's nothing to defuse here; I'm OK with losing this, this isn't some critical thing that truly needs to be fixed (it should be fixed IMO, but it doesn't need to be). I'd really rather lose this on the bases of things like the the adjective argument and not strawmen tough (not that the strawmen were intentional, it's not that difficult to accidentally make one). I've probably given this more time and effort than I would give most articles, but the strawmen aside, that's simply because high-profile articles/search terms such as this deserve quite a bit of time and effort so they can be as good as they can be, considering the shear number of readers who will see them. At this point I would tend to agree that we seem to be bordering true SNOW territory, rather then "well-aimed snowball" territory, it is almost by definition difficult too tell the difference tough.
As for you're hathote argument tough, you might have a point. We could say "Gay redirects here, this article is about Homosexuality. For the article about the English word "gay" itself, see Gay (terminology)", but a such a hatnote might not be enough for some readers to understand the difference between an article about a word, and an article about the concept a word represents. It's probably clearer when we have a lead sentence that clearly explains that an article is about a word. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 00:44, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

As a linguist, I've been interested lately in the persistence--especially in the media--of the use of gay as a synonym for gay and lesbian, which it is not. The proof of this is that you can't use lesbian as a synonym for gay. I believe this persistence is due to a continuing effort by lesbians to benefit from the greater overall weight of the gay male experience. In general lesbians seem to suffer from a difficulty in drawing attention to themselves and being taken seriously which is never the case with gay males.Godofredo29 (talk) 13:42, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Gay as a pejorative term

In the second lede paragraph, an alternate (perjorative) definition of "gay" is presented and this, in total, is almost as long as the primary definition. While there is no doubt that "that's so gay" is sometimes used as a perjorative, but this is, by far, a diminutive definition. In any case, this is discussed in the body of the article under the heading Generalized pejorative use. It should further be noted that, in that section, it is noted that many view the use of gay as a perjorative, as in it's s gay, is homophobic. For this reason alone, it is inadvisable to include in the lede section of this page.
Enquire (talk) 11:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

It summarizes a significant part of the article, per WP:Lead. Flyer22 (talk) 12:04, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

German equivalent for gay

The German equivalent for gay is schwul, this is right but it does not origin in schwuel but in schwül, the ü is important! --U-Bahnfreund (talk) 16:13, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@U-Bahnfreund: And one of the conventions for rendering the u with the umlaut in English is the ue construction. (Consider the song title "Danke Schoen" and its umlaut-o.) —C.Fred (talk) 16:20, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
I know, but what about Rügen? That is with the Umlaut --U-Bahnfreund (talk) 23:06, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Unicode support for the Latin-1 character range is now sufficiently universal that I think we can use the umlaut without fear of confusion. -- The Anome (talk) 15:17, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Another instance of early of public use for sexual orientation

The 1941 Cole Porter musical "Let's Face It", contains a song called "Farming". The premise of the song was poking fun at the celebrities trend to buy houses away from city and refer to them as their "farm" (even though they knew nothing about farming). One of the lines Porter wrote was:

"Don't inquire of Georgie Raft, Why his cow has never calfed, Georgie's bull is beautiful, but he's gay!"

Jaimelobo (talk) 19:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Likely origin of the word is Greek.

The likely origin of the word is Greek. Gay, (< Gk: genos, gender + isos, like). A person who likes the same gender as them self; a person who smiles excessively at their same gender; either a womanly male, or a manly female; a homosexual. Research888 (talk) 22:22, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

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