The Word Homosexual: Written By Mary Laner

The word Homosexual has been used for a very long time but during the 1970’s and 1980’s, the word emerged rapidly. The virus HIV spread rapidly through America and everybody blamed the spread on the Homsexuals which caused the word to explode. People either use the word in the right context or abuse the word as a hateful slur towards someone. Everyone looked at Homosexuals as a disgrace because of everyone thought that AIDS was spread through Homosexual actions between two men or two women. Homosexual is a powerful word during those times because Homosexual people were looked down upon and didn’t have equal rights as a straight person and that the word was also changing and evolving into something better. This was all important because it was the evolution of the word

The word Homosexual wasn’t used very nicely in the 1980’s. It was a word to insult someone and to outcast them as a person not normal to society. Society didn’t accept Homosexuals for who they were and how they acted. In a book written by Mary Laner, she shows how gay men were disliked and how it affected them and everybody around them. “Findings indicate that both effeminate butch-macho of personal style are disliked, and homosexuals perse are disliked more than heterosexuals.” The characteristics of a homosexual are some of the things other people dislike them for. This causes them to not get the same treatment or looked at the same by normal straight people. They are getting discriminated against and they can’t do anything about it because there are no laws against it. This is also very similar to the story we are reading in class. In the scene with Henry and Roy, Henry explains to Roy