Talk:Terminology of homosexuality

Same Sex Attracted

There is some discussion of the term Same Sex Attracted on another page and... Searching through Google scholar shows that same sex attraction it's a term that has been used in academic, psychology, and research journals for decades, becoming common in the 1990s. Same-sex is also used academically when reporting on non-sexual and non-romantic relationships from the 1970s on. And our source that it's a term that originates in the "ex-gay movement" is... a blog. I realize no original research is important on Wikipedia, but this source is clearly wrong. This is an article from 1973 in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology using "attraction between members of the same sex." [[1] by the 90's, it's used academically everywhere, like in this article, "Development of sexual orientation among adolescent and young adult women" in Developmental Psychology [2]. But there are oodles and oodles of journals using the terminology in a neutral way. Denaar (talk) 03:50, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Even the American Psychological Association (APA) uses it on their website to describe homosexuality: [3] Denaar (talk) 03:56, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The term Same-Sex originated in 1949 [4], referring to parents of the same sex as the child. By 1981, it came to be used to mean "partners of the same sex." [5]. In academic sources, it's same-sex and cross-sex; being clinical terms to refer to relationships between the same or opposite sex individuals, discussing relationships: parents, friends, peers, co-workers, etc. APA is comfortable with the term same-sex [6] and we even have Same Sex Marriage as the preferred term here on Wikipedia. Denaar (talk) 15:28, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why you were struggling to find sources, but there's countless of articles and journal papers that link its use to the religious and ex-gay and anti-trans and anti-gender movement:
You also just reverted my entire edit which added sources and context that you claimed didn't exist and as this was your 4th revert, you have violated the WP:3RR bright line - I recommend you self revert your edits. Raladic (talk) 19:39, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You reverted all my edits back to an older addition of this page, then added some new information in. My edit added back all your additions.
However - none of them are on topic for this page? This is a "Terminology of homosexuality", you added a lot of interesting information about conversion therapy, but it didn't address anything about the "terminology" - which is the subject of this page. Denaar (talk) 19:43, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All content I added was on "Same-sex attraction" - that is the term of this section and the subject of the incoming redirect as it is a term under the terminology of homosexuality, but not enough to have its own article.
The content you added was a section for "Same-sex" - which isn't a definable term, it's a broad part with related terms below it, that is WHY it's a DAB page - Same sex. So, linking to the DAB page is enough if someone wants to see what it may refer to, but it by itself doesn't mean anything and we're not going to duplicate the DAB page into this article here as that is what the DAB page is for.
I did remove your "citation needed" parts, because I added citations and content. Raladic (talk) 19:49, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Same Sex Attraction is a term that means "homosexuality" - and homosexuality already has it's own page. This page isn't about homosexuality or conversation therapy, but rather the language used to describe homosexuality.
The section "Same-sex attraction" is about use of the term.
So when we have an argument that term shouldn't be used and why, that's a really good thing to add to the page.
It isn't a good use of the page to add every use of the term - we literally could add 100's of phsychology articles using the term from the 1980's and 1990s, but they aren't about the use of the term, they just use the term. Denaar (talk) 19:56, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you notice you broke 3RRR first - you reverted every contribution I made 3 times? I'm assuming you're acting in good faith and didn't understand how to resolve an edit, but you claimed I didn't come to the talk page first (I did). I'm looking at these articles... and I'm not really seeing them describe the use of the term. One of the problems in this page is people are finding an article that uses the term, and quoting it as "proof it was used this way" - that falls under WP:OR - it's original research to go through articles like that. That's why I've had to continue to dig for better resources, I can't just tag a bunch of journals from 1960s, 70s, 80s, etc that all use the term. That's... original research Denaar (talk) 19:47, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I made exactly 2 changes:
1) [7] - restoring the status quo and adding a hat note
And then
2) [8] - I expanded the article adding countless sources that discuss the use of "same-sex attracted" and its use in ex-gay movement use for conversion therapy. Raladic (talk) 19:53, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Snokalok - you accidentally rolled back all the way prior to Denaar's first change - In this edit I added various sources to expand the section on the use by the ex-gay movement and some additional modern uses of it. Raladic (talk) 19:58, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Raldic - you reverted all my edits the first time, I did an update that incorporated the feedback you provided, but your notes didn't explain why you reverted all my edits. You again reverted all my edits, didn't explain any of it, then added some information. I restored my edits + included your information.
This last time I did remove your contribution, and explained why in each edit so it could be reviewed. That should be considered "1 revert" of your contributions, because everything else was just you reverting my contributions, not making your own. I do not think any of my edits got the page to a perfect state, but many of them improved the article, added new information, and corrected the data on the page using the existing sources. Denaar (talk) 20:12, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My edit summary where I addressed the {{citations needed}} you tagged was very explicit:
Addings refs, content about other conversion therapy groups connected to ex-gay and anti-trans and anti-gender movements. Also moving the DAB term Same sex as a Template:Broader hat to the top - it's an ambiguous term that isn't a singular thing (hence being a DAB page) so there is no point in trying to define it when it's undefinable and instead just linking to the DAB is enough - it directly answered why we did not need a section for "Same-sex" as that is a ambiguous term, for which we have a DAB page - we are not in the business of creating duplicate sections for DAB pages disambiguations. They belong either on the WP:DAB page, or in a Broad-Concept Article, as well as explicitly mentioning that I added refs and thus the [citation needed] tags you added were no longer needed. Raladic (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, apologies, I didn't see there Snokalok (talk) 20:28, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note how many of your sources say "same-sex attraction", not "same-sex attracted" which is of course contrary to your assertion at the new redirect https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Same-sex_attracted&diff=prev&oldid=1305934663.
Even the sources cited on the page currently fail this standard. Eg. this says "attraction", this only says "attracted" in the WP:HEADLINE and "attraction" 7 times in the body, and this blogpost says both equally and is part of a three part series "Gay" vs. '"Same Sex Attraction:" A Dialogue..
Its a pretty clear WP:POVFORK giving WP:UNDUE prominence to niche usage - this would be better with a section explaining the longstanding neutral/inclusive usage - especially in academia and when working with young people - and if necessary a subsection on "unwanted same-sex attraction" which is how the religious/ex-gay folks use it. I suggest taking this to WP:NPOVN Void if removed (talk) 08:53, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Added an NPOV tag, for the reasons above. Having a section titled "same-sex attracted" and arguing it is distinct from "same-sex attraction" when the first two cited sources use both makes no sense. In fact, the second citation says only "struggling with same-sex attraction" as a term of conversion therapy. Void if removed (talk) 11:46, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the first source is great, but I added it - they caution "unwanted sex-same attraction" being used as a term by those who promote conversion therapy, and that's talking about how the term is used. The next two are just about conversion therapy in general. This one [10] uses same sex attraction in a neutral way, and doesn't discuss the use of the term, suggesting it's good or bad, giving us any history of how it's been used, etc. The next GLAAD link doesn't add on anything that wasn't in the first. I don't have the login for the Mormon one, but based on the title, it doesn't look like it's discussing the terminology. The last page uses the term how many other scientific articles do - to describe attraction regardless of how people identify. However, to add that - we've got to find someone discussing it. I can pull 100 articles using it that way, but if I say "and this is evidence it's used that way"... that's original research, that's part of the challenge here. Denaar (talk) 21:36, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Found some better information: there was a Catholic reparative therapist, called Richard Fitzgibbons, who first began promoting Same Sex Attraction Disorder (SSAD), seeing it as a replacement for "Ex Gay" - and that's the religious connection to the use of the term. Still researching this one. Denaar (talk) 23:27, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What Greg Johnson really says about Same Sex Attracted

Currently, the article states that "SSA" was used by "by some religious groups in the late 20th century" - pretty vague wording, and it's attributed to Greg Coles but not supported by the link. In that article, he says that people should use the terms they identify with... gay, queer, etc... but if you're a Christian outreaching to gay men, you should avoid "Same Sex Attracted" as it has negative connotation among Christian gay men, as it might suggest you organization believes it's a sin. He does claim the term became "popular" when adopted by the ex-gay movement, but not when. But elsewhere, he gives us a more precise story.

What he says here [11] is very specific:

"When Roman Catholic reparative therapist Richard Fitzgibbons first began promoting Same Sex Attraction Disorder (SSAD) in the late 1990s, he imagined the term replacing the word “gay.” Instead, there was an intentional effort by Exodus to promote it as a replacement for “ex-gay.” Reparative therapist Richard Cohen picked the term up in 2000. Christianity Today first used it later that year. Ex-gays Joe Dallas and Anne Paulk adopted the language in 2003 and 2004. By the mid 2000s, Exodus leadership had realized that actual orientation change was quite rare, and so they threw their full weight behind the rebranding effort."

So - we've got a precise timeline and a specific name here, but we also are introduced to the term that was actually popularized... Same Sex Attraction Disorder. And - with that information it's pretty easy to confirm, this is a 1999 publication written by Richard Fitzgibbons: [12]... so the late 90's date seems pretty accurate.

But before that - the term was being used in Psychology journals, like "The disclosure to families of same-sex attractions by lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths" Journal of research on Adolescence, 1998, it's used in the book "Dual attraction: Understanding bisexuality" in 1995, Individual differences in the coming out process for gay men: Implications for theoretical minds in 1982, etc. Denaar (talk) 23:53, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Important to note - this context is super USA-dependent, the book is "Homosexuality and American Life", so that explains why those outside Christian USA communities do not have the same relationship with "Same Sex Attraction Disorder". Denaar (talk) 00:06, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Same blog uncritically uses"LGBTQ/SSA" in a positive context [13] in 2025. Denaar (talk) 00:19, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an article from the Guardian in 2004 about SSAD [14], they frame it as a USA phenomenon, and even that reparative therapy is available only in the USA and a few European countries, but it's not available in the UK. Denaar (talk) 00:25, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Further info - so the GLAAD article provided by Raladic [15] warns us that "Unwanted Same Sex Attraction" is used by conversion therapy groups. This seems to be correct - ex-gay groups promoted SSAD, but over time, groups began to to use Unwanted Same Sex Attraction... you'll find both listed in this article. [16]. It mentions "NARTH" as the source of SSAD, and this article confirms that Richard Fitzgibbons is a part of NARTH. [17] - so the history of this term, and why it's sometimes seen as objectionable by Americans, is really coming together. Denaar (talk) 01:39, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Based on all that research - this is what we have so far. Same-sex and Cross-sex are terms used in psychology and clinical research, and "same-sex" as a term had begun to be associated with "same sex partners" by the 1980's.[18]. The term Same Sex Attraction Disorder was used by a psychologist (Richard Fitzgibbons) in his 1999 book, and by using clinical terms it gave it a sheen of professionalism. In the United States, especially among Christians, they developed a negative association with Attraction, as it suggested "changeable" over things like Orientation that suggested stability. Even the Australian paper claims they choose the term to reflect the flexibility of the term and young people's exploration of their sexuality, but outside of Christian America, there doesn't seem to be the same stigma with the term. Indeed - the APA, a professional American group still uses the term Same-Sex Attraction on their pages as a neutral term today[19].

The other sources on the page leveling criticism of the term don't actually object to the word itself, but the article is phrased in a way to suggest they do. The dates on the page are wrong, and the term came from Psychology first, then was used by religious groups, so the article will be updated to reflect that. Denaar (talk) 12:16, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Getting Started

Let's start with a completely non controversial move we can agree on - reordering a page a bit. Right now, the "other terms" section is above some of the terms, so let's re-order that. My next suggestion is adding "same sex" as a term, along with the etymology of the term. Denaar (talk) 02:09, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re-ordering "other terms" to bottom makes sense.
Same sex is an ambiguous term that refers to several different topics and is not exclusively linked to homosexuality, which is why it is a disambiguation page. We do not duplicate the content of DABs, because that is what DABs are for. That is why we instead have WP:HAT notes for when someone may accidentally land somewhere but actually meant to go somewhere else. So, we do not need to explain an unexplainable ambiguous term at an article that only relates to one of several different particular related uses of the phrase as that is what DAB pages are for.
If there were a singular primary usage for the term same-sex, then a WP:RM to point there as a primary redirect would be the thing, but since such a case doesn't exist due to no singular usage being primary, instead it's a DAB and that is all it needs to be. Raladic (talk) 06:02, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A disambiguation page helps people using the search bar to find what they are looking for. They are not content. Per WP:DAB: "Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing English Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead." We wouldn't have an article for "homosexuality" and "same-sex" because even though they have slightly different meanings, they also have a lot of overlap. That doesn't mean an article can't discuss the use of different words, "words" do not need articles, different concepts do. Denaar (talk) 12:21, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is full of examples where we both have an article and a disambiguation page. If you search for Mercury, it goes to a DAB page, then there are three Mercury pages: Mercury (element), Mercury (planet), and Mercury (mythology). It leads to another DAB page where you'll find Freddie Mercury. Mercury (name). Names are an especially common use of DAB pages to get the reader to the correct place. Denaar (talk) 12:34, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly - because when someone types in Mercury, they may mean the planet, element, mythological figure and it is ambiguous.
this is the exact same case with “same sex”/“same gender” - it’s an ambiguous partial phrase used as a compound modifier, it’s not used as a term itself, but is used to modify a noun thereafter, such as same-gender relationship, same-sex marriage and so on.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, WP:NOTDICTIONARY, for that we have wiktionary. Raladic (talk) 16:01, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is literally a "Terminology of" page - please check some of the other Terminology of pages, there are many of them. You're argument, to me, is coming across as justification for deleting the whole article. Denaar (talk) 16:24, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We have articles on Wikipedia where certain topics, phrases, words have encyclopedic value to write about. We do not have Terminology articles that are pure dictionary definitions. The policy page has a Table explaining this distinction and a section dedicated to words as subjects.
When such a term/phrase/topic has encyclopedic value beyond the mere definition of a word, then we do discuss it, either as an entire stand-alone article if it has a lot of coverage and things to discuss, e.g. the commonly pejoratively used phrases "gay agenda" or "adult human female" - in such articles we talk about the usage, or misusage of phrases and similar such events that are encyclopedically of value to readers seeking out such information. And sometimes we have phrases/words that by themself are not enough yet for their own article, but are explained at related topics as a separate sub-section with the incoming redirect pointing this out and typically such redirects are tagged Template:R with possibilities to indicate the chance that if more details about it appear in the future, then the section may be WP:SPLIT off from the article they are currently on and spun out into their own stand-alone article. Raladic (talk) 20:02, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Next Plans

I was asked to build consensus here, but two editors, alone, cannot build consensus; the community is needed to do so. My original plan was to read each article, and update the section to reflect the articles. Since that has not been accepted as appropriate, my next plan is to read each statement, and the article that supports it, and remove all statements that are not source. I'll also be removing weak sources from the article. For instance, "from 2010" is something that appears out of thin air, not confirmed by any sources on the page. So I'd encourage editors on this page to ensure the correct sources are attached to the correct statements; so nothing is removed in error. My normal method of reading each source, expanding the article to include relevant information from the sources helps prevent anything from getting lost and create a more accurate article; it's why I prefer it. Denaar (talk) 19:46, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to clarify: I am not doing this today, I will come back to work on the article, I want to give existing editors a chance to work on the article first, because it takes time to sit down and read each article and remember "wait which one said that again?". So don't feel rushed. I frequently find "unsourced" statements on a page are sourced, they just aren't connected - it's why when I'm updating an article, I usually leave unsourced statements (unless they violate WP:BLP), with a citation needed until the end, and only remove what's unsourced at the end. There is a method to the madness. Denaar (talk) 21:32, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just before you stumble over yourself. Routine calculations such as "from 2010" or "2020s" are the very basis of Wikipedia. That's what history collection articles are based on 2010s, 2020s. WP:RS are not in the business of writing "2020s" into every article they write in anticipation that someone may want to refer to it in the future to be able to say that event x happened during the 2020s. That doesn't mean we don't write articles that collect them. We trust that our readers know that an article, sections, paragraphs, sentences are sometimes collections of distinct but grouped by the simple calculation of "from first event to last event". That is usually when we have a sentence that doesn't have the reference at the end of the sentence, but next to each portion of it, most commonly behind a comma.
It also extends to pretty much any event that started, but has no end, we don't update articles every day with a new RS to say "X has been married to Y from 1/1/2000-1/2/2000", next day "1/1/2000-1/3/2000", and if no new article gets published that day, that they are now not married anymore. Instead we say "X has been married to Y from 1/1/2000 - today", or "since 2000", or "in the 2000s", depending on what is the WP:SUMMARY level that is relevant to that section, often following the principle of the longer something goes, the broader a summary usually is. You'll find that on our history articles where we use the years for timespans and only somewhere in the details say what exact date something started or ended, or indeed our article disambiguation policies when we use time, we stay broad and usually will just use (year) to disambiguate.
Our readers are smart enough to understand when something is a collection of things by time, whether that's an article on an entire decade of humanity events like 2020s, a more specific List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches (2010–2019) article about distinct, but grouped rocket launches, or a single section like 2025#September of grouping events that happened during September 2025 or a paragraph or sentence within. Raladic (talk) 22:01, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV Follow up

Reminder: We need to find the best sources and report what they say, NOT, write what we want to say, and find sources to support it. Right now, this article is written with what one editor wants to say, with carefully selected sources to support it. It's current form suffers has WP:CITEKILL - for instance, per WP:RSPS, GLAAD is generally reliable but biased - statements should be attributed to them. But 3 references, all from GLAAD, were tacked on to a sentence to make it look like it's a solid, reliable statement of fact. Denaar (talk) 15:49, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've added new sources, and attributed GLAAD, but I should point out that the original source that started all this probably is, in fact, usable - you objected that it's a blog, above, but the author, Gregory Coles, is a subject matter expert when it comes to both language and homosexuality (from Google Books, His work in rhetorical theory-how language shapes society-has appeared in various academic journals and edited collections, including a collection from Cambridge University Press) and the blog itself is partially summarizing his previously-published stuff on the intersection of homosexuality and Christianity. --Aquillion (talk) 16:27, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • What I would position as an excellent source is Dayneford's Library, American Homosexual Writing, 1900 - 1913, by James Gifford, published 1995. It's in depth, academic, and has detailed citations. And because it's written in 1995 vs 1900, it begins by talking about the terminology of homosexuality in depth, and I think it will really help flesh out this article. It focuses not just on what was used and when, but why.
Part of the thesis of the introduction is that a lot of terminology is descriptive, as especially around 1900 "recognition of homosexuality was restricted largely to the controlling gaze of the medical and legal establishments, under the powerful auspices of evolving dynamic psychiatry." (page 2)
"The turn of the century had many words to indicate same-sex attraction (catamite, sodomite, invert, similisexual, homosexualist, third sex, Uranian), and yet in a sense it had none at all." (Page 3)
"I intend the word "homosexual" as a neutral term, always mindful of its artifice in imposing an order on writing that was still searching for definition." (Page 4)
"The twentieth-century term "gay" derives its power from the self-affirmation implicit on homosexuals' own conscious adoption of the term." (Page 9)
"Obviously the very word 'homosexual' owes its origin to this scientific model, the term remains redolent of the clinical." (Page 10)
This is what I mean by "finding the best sources, and reporting on what they say" - the very best articles are written this way. I'm looking for more really good sources like this.
Just a note - the link you provided took me to a work of "Science fiction, Dystopian Fiction", but if you click on the tabs for other works, you see the book I think you mean - Coates wrote "A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity"; I assume the same subject matter is in the book and the blog is easier to source. But what he was writing in that blog is his personal opinion about what terminology should be used, and his source is his personal experience with terms.
When we look at Gifford's work, published in 1995, he uses "same-sex attraction" and "same-sex attracted" 6 times, as well as other same-sex terms like "same-sex orientation", "same-sex desire", "same-sex lover", and the original Wikipedia version that made me raise an eyebrow was the suggestion that the term "same-sex attracted" started being used in 2010, when there are so many scientific and academic examples of the term long before that. Denaar (talk) 20:08, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Like it or not, SSA is the term that many anti gay sources use to discredit the idea of queer identities. It's irrelevant to point to usage elsewhere without such a connotation, especially scientific /technical sources not read by the average gay person. (t · c) buidhe 20:31, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terminology_of_homosexuality