Gay and “Gay”

For a long time, I only knew that gay represented homosexuality. But today in our class, I have learnt another meaning of this word.

In traditional American idioms, gay has two meanings. For one thing, it means homosexuality, which has been widely accepted both by Americans and people from other countries; for another thing, it still has another meaning, which is equal to happy or joyful.

Although it has two meanings, but nowadays people don’t like to use it to express how happy they are, that’s because, even in America, it is a cultural taboo for people to talk about it publicly.

My American friends tell me that if people talk gay publicly, it always means that people are discussing a topic concerning homosexuality. While in America, even most of Americans are very open to this question, they still want to talk it secretly rather than openly.
 
It is so strange that its meaning has been changed as American culture and history go on. Moreover, it is also strange that people prefer to overestimate its one meaning at the expense of its other meaning. I think, for American, it represents a kind of gender discourse, which makes its meaning changed so quickly, after all, gender identity plays an important role in American culture.