Interestingly, the term has also been frequently used by former Democratic congressman Barney Frank, who is himself gay, although Frank is also a frequent user of "gay.As Marc Stein, a professor of LGBTQ+ history at San Francisco State University said about our current era, “‘Intersectionality’ has become the buzzword.”įirst coined by the American scholar and civil rights activist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989, the term “intersectionality” posits that people experience oppression on multiple, “intersecting” fronts, and that activism focused narrowly on, say, LGBTQ+ rights will fail to address the needs of someone who is, for instance, transgender, black, and a woman. In its history of use in Congress, the word "homosexual" has largely been associated with some of the most clearly anti-gay politicians like Steve King (R-Iowa) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). The vast majority of Republicans supported the bill, and the vast majority of Democrats opposed it, although in this year Republicans' use of "homosexual" was far more limited. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) asked rhetorically, "Should the Senate run roughshod over the concerns of parents and educators about having homosexuals teach their kids?"Īn even stronger divide emerged several years later when the House voted on an extension of DOMA, the Marriage Protection Act of 2004 (which died in the Senate). However, it was mostly the Republicans in the Senate who opposed ENDA, and this opposition was accompanied by frequent use of the word "homosexual," such as when Sen. In fact, a majority of both Republicans and Democrats voted in favor of DOMA. The divide between Democrats and Republicans was somewhat murky in 1996, both in terms of word usage and support for causes important to gays and lesbians. Republicans used the term quite frequently in 1996 as Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which excluded same sex unions from the federal government's definition of marriage, and the Senate debated, but did not pass, the Employment Nondiscrimation Act of 1996 (ENDA), which would have given legal protections to gays and lesbians in the workplace. In this data, 1996 is the peak year for use of the word "homosexual." (It was also the first year digitized data is available, so we don't know if usage in 1995, much less 1955, was even higher.) In addition, Republicans have not always avoided the word "homosexual," as the graph below makes clear. The data I collected shows interesting tendencies in the use of "gay," "homosexual," and "lesbian" by political party.įor Democrats, "gay" and "lesbian" are both preferred over "homosexual." Republicans also prefer "gay" over "homosexual" but rarely use "lesbian." However, Republicans' preference for "gay" is far weaker, and they use the word "homosexual" more than Democrats do. I was specifically interested in how different labels for gay men and women are used by Congressional Democrats and the Republicans, who have historically taken different stances on issues of deep concern to many gay men and women such as employment discrimination. Congress, through data made available on by the Sunlight Foundation. This led me to take a look at the use of "homosexual" by politicians, specifically members of the U.S.
Finally, as a linguist, I know that historical usage, while usually very interesting, often has very little relevance to how words are used and understood contemporaneously.
For example, if the inclusion of "sexual" is the problem with "homosexual," why do I not feel equally uncomfortable with "heterosexual"?Īlso, if similarity to a slur is such a problem, then why is the preferred term "gay"? After all, "gay" is often used cruelly, like when it's used to mean lame or stupid.
These explanations are compelling, but I'm not sure they tell the whole story. For example, the American Psychological Association considered homosexuality a psychological disorder until 1973. Second, some have also looked at the word's history and pointed out that "homosexual" has a history of being used to pathologize gays and lesbians. They point out that, since it includes "sexual," the word focuses on sexual acts and not on gay men and women's basic humanity or that the word is related to a recognizable slur, "homo." I emerged with a couple of explanations about the term's offensiveness.įirst, people often point to parts of the word itself to explain its offensiveness. I thought it was strange that I was so oblivious, so I began researching.