Gay

Gay is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term was originally used to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy".

The term's use as a reference to homosexuality may date as early as the late 19th century, but its use gradually increased in the 20th century. In modern English, gay has come to be used as an adjective, and as a noun, referring to the people, especially to gay males, and the practices and cultures associated with homosexuality. By the end of the 20th century, the word gay was recommended by major LGBT groups and style guides to describe people attracted to members of the same sex.

At about the same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. In the Anglosphere, this connotation, among younger speakers, has a meaning ranging from derision (e.g., equivalent to rubbish or stupid) to a light-hearted mockery or ridicule (e.g., equivalent to weak, unmanly, or lame). In this use, the word rarely means "homosexual", as it is often used, for example, to refer to an inanimate object or abstract concept of which one disapproves. The extent to which these usages still retain connotations of homosexuality has been debated and harshly criticized.

List of Internet top-level domains

This list of Internet top-level domain extensions contains all top-level domains, which are those domains in the DNS root zone of the Domain Name System of the Internet.

The official list of all top-level domains is maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). IANA also oversees the approval process for new proposed top-level domains. As of January 2016, the root domain contains 1205 top-level domains, while a few have been retired and are no longer functional.

Types

As of 2015, IANA distinguishes the following groups of top-level domains:

Original top-level domains

Seven generic top-level domains were created early in the development of the Internet, and pre-date the creation of ICANN in 1998.

Gay (given name)

Gay (Gaye) is a female or male given name (795th ("Gay") and 1295th ("Gaye") most common female name in the United States, according to the 1990 U.S. census.)

It can also be used as a short form of the female names Gaynell and Gaynor and as a short form of the male names Gaylen and Gaylord.

The writer Gay Talese's name is derived from Gaetano, his grandfather's 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.

People with the name Gay

References

See also

Gay (disambiguation)

Gay originally used to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy", but since the 1960s (by reappropriation) has most commonly referred to a male (and later also a female) whose sexual orientation is attraction to persons of the same sex.

Gay may also refer to:

Places

People

Art, entertainment, and media

List of Kath & Kim episodes

List of Kath & Kim episodes may refer to:

Gay (magazine)

Gay was Toronto's first gay magazine, published almost simultaneously with ASK Newsletter, together Canada's first gay magazines. The earliest periodical anywhere to use 'Gay' in its title. Produced by four Toronto men in a commercial venture, the Gay Publishing Company, Gay ran serious articles, letters to the editor, a diary, gossip columns, a feature called the "Gabrial Club", poetry, fiction, politics and a discrete personals column. Gay was illustrated, usually with photographs of drag queens, but also including 'physique' photography.

Intended for a 'mainstream' gay audience it reflected cautious reformism, defending the rights and normalcy of a constituency living in a hostile environment. This was not unlike the political activism emerging in a few large American and European cities before more confrontational activism. Gay also published on Toronto police raids on bars, and on the calls for social and political change that were beginning to surface.

The first five-hundred-copy issue sold out almost immediately. Printing two thousand copies by issue three, distributed to a number of outlets in Toronto and Montreal. Shortly, Gay expanded into the United States as Gay International. It quickly outstripped American publications' distributions, and by the spring of 1965 it was publishing twenty thousand copies across North America and selling about eight thousand. Publication ended in 1966 when criminal charges were levied against one of its central creators.