GAY-BASHING query

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 11/21/06, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Nov 21, 2006 at 11:25:38AM -0500, Fred Shapiro wrote:
> > The earliest usage I have found so far is in an article in Newsweek, March
> > 23, 1981, which had the headline "The Growing Terror of 'Gay Bashing'"
> > (page 30).
>
> 1981 L.A. Times 6 Mar. I. 17/1 It has come to be known in
> Portland as 'gay bashing'--vicious attacks directed at..homosexual
> men.

* gay-basher

1979 _Boston Sunday Globe_ 9 Dec. 37 (heading) Hatred, fear, spur gay-basher.

[Article is not in any of the newspaper databases, AFAIK (Proquest's
Globe coverage ends in 1923 and picks up again in 1980), but it's
cited in the article below.]

* gay-bashing

1980 _Qualitative Sociology_ 3(3) Sept. Forty-two percent of those
victims with a more overt gay lifestyle were killed by "gay-bashing"
gangs or groups of bikers.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l786u6385m421428/

[Don't know the page no., but text is verifiable via Google Scholar.]


--Ben Zimmer

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