Read along with the three podcasts, or open the full dictionary entry for Homosexual for the definition, Arabic meaning, synonyms and example sentences.
Narrator: Welcome. Today's word is homosexual — spelled H-O-M-O-S-E-X-U-A-L, pronounced hom-oh-SEK-shoo-ul, IPA slash ˌhɒm-ə-ˈsek-ʃu-əl slash.
Narrator: Homosexual is both an adjective and a noun. As an adjective, it describes a person who is sexually attracted to people of the same sex, or describes things relating to that attraction. As a noun, a homosexual is a person with this attraction.
Narrator: The word was coined in 1869 by Karl-Maria Kertbeny — a Hungarian journalist and activist — in pamphlets arguing against the criminalisation of same-sex relations in Prussia. The term combines Greek homos (same) with Latin sexualis. It was later adopted by the medical literature, most influentially by Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis in 1886, which classified homosexuality as a psychiatric condition.
Narrator: The medicalisation of homosexuality — the framing of same-sex attraction as a pathology requiring treatment — shaped official and public attitudes through much of the twentieth century. The American Psychiatric Association's removal of homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 1973 was a decisive turning point. In the UK, the Wolfenden Report of 1957 recommended decriminalisation; the Sexual Offences Act 1967 partially decriminalised male homosexual acts in England and Wales.
Narrator: The term gay — used in coded ways within gay subculture from at least the 1920s — became the preferred self-identifier in the gay rights movement from the 1970s onwards. Lesbian became the preferred term for women attracted to women. Homosexual now functions primarily as the formal register term in medical, legal, and academic contexts.
Narrator: Remember this: homosexual — a word coined to argue for decriminalisation, turned into a diagnosis, and now largely succeeded by the language the community chose for itself.
Speaker A: The history of the word homosexual is inseparable from the history of attitudes toward same-sex attraction in Western medicine and law. The word was created with a specific political purpose — Kertbeny intended it as a neutral term for the purpose of legal argument, contrasting with the existing vocabulary of sin and perversion. The irony is that the term was immediately adopted by the medical establishment in a context that was anything but neutral: Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis classified homosexuality as a degenerative condition, and the medical vocabulary of homosexuality became the vocabulary of pathology for nearly a century.
Speaker B: Yes. And the American Psychiatric Association's decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM in 1973 is one of the most significant moments in the history of psychiatric nosology — the classification of mental disorders. The decision followed years of activism by gay and lesbian psychiatrists and advocates, including the dramatic confrontation at the APA annual meeting in 1970 and the subsequent internal debates within the association. The removal was not unanimous — it was accomplished through a board vote and then ratified by a membership referendum — and it represented a fundamental shift in the conceptual framing of same-sex attraction from disorder to variation.
Speaker A: Right. And the legal history of homosexuality in England and Wales is one of the most significant in the evolution of civil liberties law. The Wolfenden Report of 1957 — the report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution — recommended decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults in private. The committee's report was controversial and Parliament did not act on its recommendations for a decade. The Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised male homosexual acts in England and Wales for men over twenty-one in private, was a landmark. Scotland decriminalised in 1980, Northern Ireland in 1982. The age of consent was equalised to sixteen in 2001. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 introduced equal marriage in England and Wales.
Speaker B: Yes. And the evolution of language in this area — from homosexual through gay to LGBTQ — reflects broader changes in self-identification, political organisation, and social understanding. The shift from a medically assigned label (homosexual) to a self-chosen identity term (gay) is politically significant: it represents the community's claim over its own description. The subsequent expansion to LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning) and further to LGBTQIA+ reflects increasing visibility of distinct identities and ongoing debate about inclusion, language, and representation.
Speaker A: Now, global context.
Speaker B: Yes. The legal and social status of homosexuality varies dramatically around the world. In 2024, homosexuality remains criminalised in approximately 64 countries. In some of these countries the penalty is imprisonment; in a small number, the death penalty applies. Against this, the majority of European countries, North America, Australasia, and increasing parts of Latin America have decriminalised and in many cases extended equal legal recognition through same-sex civil partnerships or marriage. The global variation is one of the most significant in international human rights law.
Speaker A: Right. And the psychology of sexual orientation — the scientific understanding of what determines sexual attraction — is one of the most studied and most contested areas in psychology. The consensus position, supported by major psychological and psychiatric organisations, is that sexual orientation is a natural human variation, not a disorder, and that attempts to change sexual orientation through conversion therapy are not only ineffective but harmful. The UK banned conversion therapy for sexual orientation for under-18s in 2022, with ongoing debate about extending the ban to adults.
Speaker B: Common note — homosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer describe related aspects of sexual orientation and identity. Homosexual is the formal, clinical, and legal term applicable to both men and women. Gay in contemporary usage typically refers to men attracted to men, though it is also used as an umbrella term for the broader community. Lesbian specifically refers to women attracted to women. Bisexual describes attraction to more than one gender. Queer is a reclaimed term used broadly to describe non-heterosexual identity, preferred particularly in political and academic contexts. Register and context determine which term is most appropriate.
Speaker A: The word coined for legal argument, used as a diagnosis, and now replaced in daily life by the language that people chose for themselves. That is the story of homosexual.
Speaker B: Today's word is homosexual. In prompting, it's a Kertbeny 1869 coinage decriminalisation history, DSM 1973 removal APA psychiatric nosology, Wolfenden Report 1967 Sexual Offences Act English law, LGBTQ language evolution self-identification, and global criminalisation human rights law word — for homosexual history coinage tools, DSM psychiatric history guides, Wolfenden 1967 UK law analysis platforms, LGBTQ language evolution tools, and global LGBTQ rights law guides.
Speaker A: Homosexual spans Kertbeny 1869 neutral political legal argument Krafft-Ebing Psychopathia Sexualis pathology medicalisation century, APA 1973 DSM removal activism 1970 annual meeting board vote membership referendum nosology, Wolfenden 1957 report Sexual Offences Act 1967 Scotland 1980 Northern Ireland 1982 equal marriage 2013 UK law, gay lesbian LGBTQIA+ self-chosen identity evolution political community language, and 64 countries criminalisation death penalty European equal marriage global variation human rights — tools built around it serve legal historians, psychiatry historians, LGBTQ rights researchers, sociolinguists, and human rights lawyers.
Speaker B: Exactly. Watch this history brief.
Speaker B: Build a Next.js homosexual coinage and medicalisation history for a legal historian — documenting Kertbeny's 1869 coinage and its political intent, reviewing how the term was adopted by Krafft-Ebing and the medical establishment, analysing the shift from legal argument to psychiatric classification, and producing a homosexual legal and medical history.
Speaker A: Homosexual history documented with coinage intent and medicalisation trajectory analysis so legal historians explain the specific irony of Kertbeny's term — coined to argue for decriminalisation, immediately appropriated by a medical establishment that turned it into a diagnosis — and what this reveals about the relationship between language, law, and medicine.
Speaker B: Right. Now psychiatry.
Speaker B: Design a Django APA DSM 1973 and psychiatric nosology of homosexuality for a psychiatry historian — documenting the history of homosexuality in the DSM, reviewing the 1970 activism and the board debate that led to the 1973 removal, analysing what the removal reveals about the relationship between social movements and scientific classification, and producing a DSM homosexuality history.
Speaker A: DSM homosexuality removal documented with activism and nosology debate analysis so psychiatry historians engage with one of the most important moments in the history of classification — when a diagnostic category was removed not because new scientific evidence was presented but because the political and cultural framing of the phenomenon had fundamentally changed.
Speaker B: Now law.
Speaker B: Create a Svelte Wolfenden Report and UK homosexuality decriminalisation history for a law teacher — documenting the Wolfenden Report 1957, the Sexual Offences Act 1967, and the subsequent milestones to equal marriage in 2013, reviewing the arguments made at each stage, analysing what the UK legal history reveals about the relationship between law, morality, and social change, and producing a UK homosexuality decriminalisation guide.
Speaker A: UK decriminalisation history documented with legal argument and social change analysis so law teachers help students trace the sixty-year journey from a committee recommendation that Parliament ignored for a decade to equal marriage — understanding what changed in law, in politics, and in public opinion at each milestone.
Speaker B: Now language.
Speaker B: Build a Vue LGBTQ language evolution and self-identification for a sociolinguist — documenting the evolution from homosexual through gay to LGBTQIA+, reviewing the political significance of community self-chosen identity terms, analysing how language change in this area reflects and drives broader social change, and producing an LGBTQ language evolution guide.
Speaker A: LGBTQ language evolution documented with self-identification political significance and social change analysis so sociolinguists explain why the shift from a medically assigned label to a community self-chosen term is not merely a vocabulary preference but a fundamental change in who has the authority to name and describe an identity.
Speaker B: Last one.
Speaker B: Develop a React Native global homosexuality legal status and human rights for a human rights researcher — documenting the current global variation in legal status of homosexuality, reviewing the countries where it remains criminalised and the penalties involved, generating a global rights index framework for specified regions, and producing a global LGBTQ rights analysis.
Speaker A: So homosexual in prompts spans coinage history, psychiatric nosology, UK law, LGBTQ language evolution, and global human rights — the clinical term serving every domain where the history of a word is also the history of how a society treats its people.
Speaker B: Exactly. A word with a political purpose, a medical history, and a community that chose different words. Build tools that understand all three layers.
Homosexual — meaning in Arabic & definition More H courses GL Dictionary