LGBT Portal Lesbian · Gay · Bisexual · Transgender · Homosexuality LGBT history Timeline · Gay Liberation · Social movements · AIDS timeline Culture Community · Pride · Coming out · Gay slang · Gay village · Queer theory · Religion · Symbols · Queer · Questioning Law Marriage · Civil union · Adoption · Sodomy law · Military service · Hate crime · Laws by country Categories This box: view • talk • edit Sexual orientation Part of sexology Distinctions Asexuality Bisexuality Heterosexuality Homosexuality Pansexuality Paraphilia Labels Gay Lesbian Queer Questioning Methods Kinsey scale Klein Grid Study Biology Demographics Medicine Animal Homosexuality in animals See also Intersex Transgender Transsexual This box: view • talk • edit In contemporary usage, the adjective gay usually describes a person's sexual orientation, being the standard term for homosexual. In earlier usage, the word meant "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy", though this usage is infrequent today. Gay sometimes also refers to commonalities shared by homosexual people, as in "gay history", the ideological concept of gay culture as in "gay music" or "gay sensibility" which is neither definable or accurate. The word gay is sometimes used to refer to same-sex relationships more generally, as in "gay marriage", although this usage is discouraged by some LGBT supporters: the rationale is that this usage is exclusive of not only bisexual and transgender people but also lesbians who generally reject labels of being a subset of men, even gay men. While gay applies in some contexts to all homosexual people, the term lesbian is sex-specific: it is used exclusively to describe gay women. Sometimes gay is used to refer only to men.