[Ads-l] Second Oldest Clearcut Citation for "Gay" (Homosexual)

[Shapiro, Fred]

The outhistory.org website has the following citation:


Within the next two weeks it is quite likely I shall be going to East Orange for a drink at a bar and dinner. I have a friend who lives there (not gay, but with whom I discuss things freely) whose name is Byron Conklin. He lives at 160 Prospect Street with his mother. She would probably join us for that drink et al. Would you be interested in joining us? (Leo Adams to Wesley Lea, December 31, 1939)


This is taken from the letters of Leo Adams, who was himself clearly homosexual, at the New York Public Library.  I believe this is the second oldest known clearcut citation for "gay" meaning "homosexual."  (There are many other citations from the 1920s and 1930s that use "gay" in a homosexual context but are general or ambiguous in their signification.)


Fred Shapiro

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