i agree. i have the same reaction every time i hear it too.

Same here. When i read the word, i hear Falwell's voice... ho-mo-sesxhual, dripping with contempt.

And i would rather that voice had been buried with him.

Well it does sound a bit clinical. I usually roll my eyes rather than cringe when I hear it used in everyday speech. I think its use by those you mention is a passive-aggressive way to say "those people" without appearing unreasonable.

The only people I want calling me queer are the radical right. Call me homo with a smile or gay and I'm a happy camper.

I use homosexual to describe myself quite often.

If we're thinking about demonized words, think about "gay". Using the word as a pejorative has utterly overtaken its use to convey identity. Does that mean it should become repulsive? I don't think so.

I only dislike words that originated out of ill-intent, such as queer, faggot, sissy, etc.

It isn't so much the actual word homosexual which I find offense but the way anti-gay people pronounce the word with the accent on sex.

I much prefer using the word queer. It's concise and can refer to all parts of the queer community without using that long list of letters to include everyone.

Homosexual is primarily a scientific and clinical term, and the word is OK with me if it is used scientifically/clinically.

The problem, obviously, is when used in political speech. "Homosexual" is the only word available that isn't overtly hostile, yet short of affirming like the word "gay". The word "homosexual" comes out of their mouths, but you do not have an over-active imagination when you hear the word "faggot" "queer" or "cocksucker" (No, "cocksucker" is too graphically sexual --- not even bigots can use that one if they want to pretend that they are being genteel! Nice people just don't talk about "cocks" ... much less, talk about sucking them.)

"Sexual deviants" is another term they might use ... as in, "Regarding same-sex attraction, there are about 25 million sexual deviants like this in America." Problem is, after having just pointed out that there are 25 million of us, exactly how "deviant" could it possibly be?

"Homosexual" is much like the word "Negro" ... it can be used neutrally, or it can be an obvious euphemism for a term that is more offensive, even though that offensive term is exactly what the speaker would prefer to say.

If the word "homosexual" rolls off the speaker's tongue naturally, it is probably a scientist speaking --- and when you hear the word KNEEEE-GROOOOOW you know the person speaking is either a black person speaking in code, or a white bigot who wants to make it out of the room alive.

I don't particularly care for the word "homosexual", in large part to the disdain with which it is used by those who dislike us. I am often more irritated by the work "lifestyle." "I don't agree with your lifestyle, but I'm an glad you are happy..." What LIFESTYLE is that? The one where I go to work 40 hours a week? pay my taxes? care for my family? sleep with the person I love? It is so derogatory.

Ah,yes ... the "homosexual lifestyle"!!

What it it? ... Well, for me, I crack open the hinge on my coffin at about 6:15 in the evening to see if the sun has gone down yet. By 6:30 PM my coffin lid is usually wide open, and I grab the TV remote and watch the national news. Around 7 I spend about an hour sharpening my fangs, then I put on my cloak and hang upside down from the ceiling beams in my cellar until about 11 o'clock. Then, finally, it is time for me to go out onto the street to see if I can find a lovely bare neck to ...

That goes to show how personal these things are. The fastest way to get me riled up is to call me gay. I never use this term to denote the whole LGBT community and cannot stand it when my own sexual identity is absorbed into that term in a 'catch all' fashion. Gay has a very specific general connotation and that is for something that I am not. I'm happier using queer but tend to use specific terms for specific things.

Gore Vidal pointed out that the late 19th-century coined word "homosexual" is itself a badly formed bastardization because it combines a Greek prefix "homo" with the Latin "sex."

He proposed "homophile" as a term purely derived from Greek elements.

I prefer HOMO-loving. I have the Love-Orientation to fall in love with souls found in the same gender.

I knew this at an early age. Later on as I grew up, I knew I could express this love through sex.

The term HOMOSEXUAL keeps the focus on the "behavior" - the sex act, which is such limited thinking. The WINGNUTS want to frame this "act" as a choice, while we know we are just expressing our nature, which doesn't seem like much of a choice.

Yeah, well... I lean in AJ's direction, and yours, Waymon... the folks who are most comfortable with the word are also the ones who tend to be uncomfortable sitting down face-to-face with me at a midwestern church potluck.

Know how you feel. The fundies use the term "transvestite" to describe someone like me. Crossdresser is much preferred at this point in time, but you can't get the fundies to admit that.

You are right to recoil and it's not an appropriate term for non-clinical settings. When drafting ENDA, we studiously avoided it, relying on a study that showed that juries reacted negatively to it and were more likely to rule against the gay person's side in a case when it was used in civil rights law, thus repeated frequently in a civil rights case.

They found it alienating and also thought that it described us as more rampantly hypersexual in an offensive, out-of-control way, much akin to the hypersexualizing-with-connotations-of-danger mis-attached to African-American men.

I know what you mean about that delivery problem, too. Back in the dark ages, I actually used to do trainings for journalism students -- particularly broadcast journalism ones -- where I made them practice saying the various terms until they could do it with fluent ease, as if these were ordinary everyday words -- like they are -- instead of something akin to long dead fish that needed to be held as far away from one's nose as possible.

For myself, I'm growing fond of calling us "Super-Queers", cape fully attached. I'm still working on the musical theme to go with it.

One thing that pisses me off is the missing p-word: people. I've been trolling on some fundie Facebook groups and getting downright confrontational about that, saying that I've observed that many people who use the word "homosexuals" can't bring themselves to say "people." Quite often the people who are going on about "homosexxuals" simply change the subject, disoriented that their linguistic tool for "othering" is missing.

Interesting.

I'm a trans woman who is sexually and romantically interested in men only and i've begun using the word heterosexual as my sexual identity in order to detach myself from the politics of of the word straight. I see being straight as being sick with sexism, misogyny, classism and the general oppression of women. I see the word as a value judgment against queer people (i.e. I'm on the straight and narrow and you are crooked and broken). I share none of these values and feel that my sexuality as a trans woman that although normative is also oppressed (The same bigots who would use the word homosexual against you, would be disgusted in the same way to know the sex acts I engage in with my male partners).

Its very interesting how the dichotomy of straight/homosexual as become oppressive and full of negative value judgments against LGB folk, while heterosexual/gay have maintained a kind of positivity or at the very least detachment from that kind of negative politics.

Hey, Waymon,

"Homosexual" always makes me feel like I should be pressed flat against a corkboard, spreadeagled, with a sharp pin through my middle. And with the word "Homosexual-Lesbianus" scrawled in lovely script on a little piece of white paper right below.

I like being a queer lesbian.

I can't stand the use of "homosexual" in non-clinical or scientific discussions. When we're talking about a gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans or queer or [fill in the blank] identity, we're talking about people. And when we're talking about our struggle, it really isn't about what happens in bedrooms, it what happens in boardrooms. In workplaces. In hospitals. In courthouses. And ultimately, in all the ordinary transactions and communications of daily life. In everything I do, I am who I am, and I expect to be treated with dignity and respect. Replacing my words -- gay, among others -- with homosexual does not give me that respect, and it reduces me to a one-dimensional caricature.

Some of my "other" words are "middle aged," "military brat," "self-employed," "moderate," "spiritual," "Texan," and so on. There are more. It's not necessary or desirable to use all of them at once, and I won't be restricted by any one of them.

Notice that up above I separated the various "words" instead of saying GLBTQ (or whichever order I'm supposed to use to be politically correct). I think we have to remember that each of these are distinct identities, and they are -not- always a single monolithic community with a common voice or common interests. Yes, we frequently intersect, yes we are often oppressed together, but yes we also have separate needs, separate experiences, and separate identities, too. It's sort of like trying to use the phrase "Asian-Pacific" to encompass people whose heritage ranges from India to Korea to Samoa. Often there is a common interest; often there simply is not.

Oh, Waymon. You can't be too old for "queer," because I know that movement started before me and I'm not that much younger than you are. I think it was in the early 90's when people started talking about reclaiming it.

Most of the African-American GLBT community hates the 'Q' word, myself included. When I was the co-host of a GLBT radio show back home on KPFT-FM I cringed when Jimmy Carper used to go into his tagline 'Queer Radio With Attitude'

Most African-American peeps prefer using the term 'SGL community', same gender-loving community or simply gay.

But that may be a generational thing in our community as well.

More and more I'm just using the letter Q; Q community, Q rights, Q visibilty.

Maybe I'm just a lazy typist.

Queer is my preferred term to describe myself (and I'm definitely over 50!) precisely BECAUSE it implies a radical, subversive, anti-hetero-normative, feminist and leftist stance.

To me, lesbian and gay implies an investment, conscious or otherwise, in the mainstream status-quo.

Homosexual, on the other hand, implies a person who is unable to resist unwanted, perverse desires. I also think it is understood fundamentally, although not technically, to be male. After all, from a patriarchal standpoint, what (harm) can two women do together?

I use "homosexual" to refer to men who I know for a fact are actively renouncing their primary sexual attraction to other men. Larry Craig comes to mind.

They validate liberalism when radicalism is what's needed, or radicalism is a more rational stance?

Good question. I don't know the answer. I was speaking from a purely emotional standpoint, rather than a political one.

I agree wholeheartedly that same-sex relationships are deeply subversive to the norm of male dominance and female submission. But what about when the participants don't want it to be so? When what they really want more than anything is to be normal, but are unable to be so?

And Yasmin, Off to do harm...at least in my mind... LOL

But what about when the participants don't want it to be so? When what they really want more than anything is to be normal, but are unable to be so?

Sometimes paradigms break and sometimes they stretch to fit something bigger? Must. Stop. This. Metaphor.

Already did my harm.

But it's true anyway.