Discrimination of the Gay Community

The gay community has faced many accounts of discrimination and hardship to express their sexuality due to societies judgements. In history gay members of communities there were many slang terms that referenced to the meaning of a gay individual. The term “gay” which is to describe a homosexual person which was produced in between the 1960s and 1970s. This term is mainly used to identify same sex relationships in today’s society. Another slang term of homosexual men is “faggot” which was used to ridicule and often be used as a joke with straight guys.

The term was made to represent prostitute before representing homosexuality. “Homosexual” was produced in the 1869 by a Hungarian doctor named Karoly Maria Benkert (Robinson, 2017).

Gay men made a secret language in the twentieth century to communicate to other homosexual men. The language was called Polari which was a code to help keep the identity of homosexual males from being revealed. It was a collection of different words and phrases mixed together to create a form of communication. It was popular among the gay community for many years with keeping their sexual orientation concealed from society. Another from of language of communication in the gay community was Gayspeak. Gayspeak was a language formed to give an understanding throughout different languages. The English gay words were converted into different languages such as French, German, Japanese, Italian, Nederlands and Portuguese (Cage, 1999). Gayle was a communication base that was used in a group of races of white South African gay men. Gayle, Gayspeak, and Polari gave way to the secret communication and ways homosexual individuals kept their identity a secret. Gay members face countless acts of harassment and judgement from society. They face high rates of workplace discrimination due to their sexual orientation.

A study stated, “Studies show that anywhere from 15 percent to 43 percent of gay people have experienced some form of discrimination and harassment at the workplace”(Krehley & Burns, 2011). Not only do they are discriminated in the workplace they are also discriminated with being accepted for healthcare. Many homosexual individuals when trying to require health care needs are refused service or even mistreated. Gay men in the field have strived for equality and being able to be open about their sexuality in the military. They have had to fight for the right to join the military and it has progressed to repeal laws that forbid military members to talk about their sexual orientation. Gay men have been a main cause of societies discrimination whether it be in work, healthcare, military, etc. Homosexual individuals have been facing discrimination not only throughout history but is still continuing in today’s society.

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