What is the male equivalent of 'lesbian'?

Question:

What is the male equivalent of lesbian? 'Gay' seems to be the term to encompass both male and female homosexuals. 'Lesbian' is the term for female homosexuals, and it's not considered derogatory (depending on your circle). What is the term for a *male* homosexual that is not derogatory?

Answer:

Gay is the only term for a male homosexual that can be used with no fear of derogatory undertones.

The acronym LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) is a good reference when in doubt since those are the universally accepted terms for describing the non-straight community.

The term "gay" had been adopted by society in general over the last two decades, to include both homosexual men and women. You'd probably get as many different answers as the number of people you ask as to the evolution of lesbians referring to themselves as gay, but we are willing to bet that it was simply a matter of simplifying things. Instead of writing "gays and lesbians" in everything that was written about us, writers just shortened it to "gays".

Interestingly enough, the term "lesbian" seems to predate "gay" as far as the etymology of the words goes. "Lesbian" referred to homosexual women as early at the 1880's or 1890's, while "gay" was used to mean a homosexual male in 1971. Prior to that "gay" meant promiscuous when used in terms of describing a man or woman, whether they were homosexual or straight.