terminology/gay?

Question

Can the term "gay" be used for homosexual females?

Answer 1

Yes, as in gay people or gay woman, it interchangeable with lesbian. Some prefer either gay woman or lesbian rather than the other term.

Answer 2

Yes- 'gay' just is another word for 'homosexual', and 'homosexual' is just an adjective that means sexually oriented to the same sex. Therefore it can be used.

'Lesbian' is a particular term to differentiate gay women from gay men, but you can correctly call a lesbian a gay woman.

Answer 3

I use the term gay people to mean gay men and lesbians. And the term gay women to mean lesbians.

Some lesbians might prefer the term lesbian, and that's fine. I don't think it's a big deal either way to most - as far as I know, that is.

Answer 4

Yes, men are gay, women are both gay and lesbian. They get two words, and we get one!

Answer 5

Gay is an adjective meaning "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"; however in modern usage, gay is a word usually used, as either a noun or adjective, to refer to same-sex sexual orientation.
"Gay", when used as an adjective, sometimes describes traits associated with both queer, or homosexual, men and women, culture or lifestyle. The term lesbian, on the other hand, is used exclusively in a gender-specific way to describe women who prefer sexual relations with other women.

Etymology
The primary meaning of the word gay has changed dramatically during the 20th century—though the change evolved from earlier usages. It derives via the Old French gai, probably from a Germanic source. The word originally meant "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy" and was very commonly used with this meaning in speech and literature. For example, the title of the 1938 ballet aptly named Gaîté Parisienne ("Parisian Gaiety"), a patchwork compiled from Jacques Offenbach's operettas, illustrates this connotation. In more recent times, starting in the mid 20th century, the word gay cannot usually be used in this former context without the expectation that one will assume a double entendre, or that the person using the term is out of touch with contemporary society.
The word started to acquire sexual connotations in the late 17th century, being used with meaning "addicted to pleasures and dissipations". This was by extension from the primary meaning of "carefree": implying "uninhibited by moral constraints". By the late nineteenth century the term "gay life" was a well-established euphemism for prostitution and other forms of extramarital sexual behaviour that were perceived as immoral.

The first name Gay is still occasionally encountered, usually as a female name although the spelling is often altered to Gaye. (795th most common in the United States, according to the 1990 US census). It was also used as a male first name. The first name of the popular male Irish television presenter Gabriel Byrne was always abbreviated as "Gay", as in the title of his radio show The Gay Byrne Show. It can also be used as a short form of the female name Gaynell and as a short form of the male names Gaylen and Gaylord. The "Gaiety" was also a common name for places of entertainment. One of Oscar Wilde's favourite venues in Dublin was the Gaiety Theatre, first appearing there in 1884.


Gay was originally used purely as an adjective ("he is a gay man" or "he is gay"). Gay can also be used as a plural noun: "Gays are opposed to that policy"; although some dislike this usage, it is common particularly in the names of various organizations such as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and Children Of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere (COLAGE). It is sometimes used as a singular noun, as in "he is a gay", such as in its use (partly to comic effect) by the Little Britain comedy character Daffyd Thomas (a gay man who believes himself "the only gay in the village" despite abundant evidence to the contrary).

It has been claimed that "gay" was derived as an acronym for "Good As You", but this is a backronym (based on a false etymology).

Another folk etymology refers to Gay Street, a small street in the West Village of New York City — a nexus of homosexual culture. The term also seems, from documentary evidence, to have existed in New York as a code word in the 1940s, where the question, "Are you gay?" would denote more than it might have seemed to outsiders.

Answer 6

Sure. But some lesbians might not like it.

P.S. Female is gender identity, you want the phrase:
Homosexual women. Just so you don't confuse the transgendered people, they have enough to worry about.

QUEER is universal.