A challenge to the Guardian: it's time to drop the word 'homosexual' [View All]

[William769]

Sometimes, fairness trumps concision. That's the message I'd give to Guardian journalists when the noun "homosexuals" is used instead of "gay people" in reporting. The latter may contain one whole extra word – but it also contains infinitely less insidious prejudice.

The theme for this year's National Anti-Bullying Week, which has been running all this week, is "Stop and think – words can hurt". It's a lesson we can learn beyond the school gates. So let's stop and think and examine why "homosexual" may be a hurtful word.

To stop prejudice-based bullying, gay people need to be normalised - not distanced by language. Plain English dictates that we use "people" instead of Homo sapiens so it follows that "gay people" is less stigmatising than "homosexuals". The noun "homosexual" is equally dehumanising and cold. Reporting needs to be neutral. To be clear, I'm not advocating saccharine and perfunctory warmth to replace this coldness – "those fabulous, wonderful gays!" – but the entirely neutral "gay people".

There's a deeper, more important reason to scrap this pernicious noun. It's loaded with discriminatory baggage. "Homosexual" was the carefully chosen oppressive medical vernacular employed to describe gay people as mentally ill. The American Psychiatric Association officially declassified it as a mental illness in 1974; the World Health Organisation eventually followed suit in 1992. But the hangover effect lives on: some medical professionals still use it as a justification for carrying out so-called "homosexual-cure" therapies. As such, "homosexual" can never be thought to come from a neutral position.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mind-your-language/2011/nov/18/mind-your-language-word-homosexual?newsfeed=true

EDIT: When I posted this article I forgot the link to the article. I appologize if this has caused any trouble. I alerted on myself so I could get the opportunity to be able to edit the post.

Bill