In the In Times Past column, David W. Dunlap explores New York Times history through artifacts housed in the Museum at The Times.
The Advocate, a national L.G.B.T.Q. newsmagazine, took The New York Times to task in its issue of Dec. 9, 1986, for what the magazine regarded as this newspaper’s indifference, if not hostility, to the gay community. Among the articles in The Advocate was “The ‘G’ Word,” about The Times’s refusal to adopt the word “gay.”
At the time, there was an explicit prohibition in The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: “gay. Do not use as a synonym for homosexual unless it appears in the formal, capitalized name of an organization or in quoted matter.”
Gay men found this rule to be demeaning. I know, because I was one of them. As a closeted young reporter on The Times’s Metro desk, however, I didn’t stand a chance of persuading the publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (1926-2012), or the executive editor, A.M. Rosenthal (1922-2006), to overturn a ban they had put in place in 1976.
So I waged guerrilla warfare instead. Whenever I wrote articles of particular concern to gay readers, I peppered the text with “gay” as much as I could — in accordance with the stylebook rule. I also tried to limit use of the clinical, antiquated “homosexual.”
The point was not to be subversive, but to leave readers with the impression that my articles were written in idiomatic English. For instance, 42 years ago, I covered the transformation of a former New York City public school in Greenwich Village into what is now the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.
“Homosexual” appeared only once in the article (apart from the headline, “Sale of Site to Homosexuals Planned,” which I didn’t write). But “gay” appeared six times, in the names of organizations and in direct quotations.
That 1986 Advocate issue is in the Museum at The Times, as is a copy of the old stylebook, opened to the “gay” entry. The editor to whom the book belonged, Thomas Feyer, drew an “X” through the entry in June 1987, when the rule was superseded by a memo from Allan M. Siegal (1940-2022), an assistant managing editor.
“Starting immediately,” Mr. Siegal wrote, “we will accept the word gay as an adjective meaning homosexual, in references to social or cultural patterns and political issues.” That made my life easier, in many ways.
Today, the stylebook says: “gay (adj.) is preferred to homosexual in most contexts.”
David W. Dunlap, a retired Times reporter and columnist, is the curator of the Museum at The Times, which houses Times artifacts and historical documents.
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