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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Nomenclature - Gay/Homosexual/Lesbia
Message-ID: <1529@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 10:28:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1529
Posted: Thu Aug 15 10:28:27 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 01:25:54 EDT
References: <10900001@ada-uts.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 20

That's news to me.  My impression was that "Negro" (& similarly "homo-
sexual") were objectionable because

1) they were the labels used during the bad old days of near-universal
   discrimination & thus are inextricably bound up with the benighted
   attitudes of that period; 

2) they were names given by the "oppressor", & since naming affects
   perception which affects people's sense of what is real, minorities
   ought to regain control over their identities by renaming themselves.

3) they're misleading or poorly chosen names: "homosexual" was coined
   in late Victorian times, using a Greek prefix & Latin suffix (the
   ancient world had no terms for either homo- or heterosexual).

Actually, the word "slav" I think derives from the Latin "slavus" or
slave, & some Slavs have objected to its use.

					Regards,
					Ron Rizzo