| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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5. Gender: Sexist Language and Assumptions
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| § 29. same-sex |
| Same-sex is a relatively recent coinage that arose to refer to activities and arrangements that involve one gender but not the other. Thus, it has appeared in phrases like same-sex friends (as opposed to one’s friends of the opposite sex) and same-sex support system (in which members of one gender help each other in the manner of an “old boy network"). The single-gender usage continues today, especially in reference to education: A same-sex school is all-male or all-female. More recently, same-sex has been used as a substitute for homosexual in contexts that do not warrant explicit reference to sexuality. It occurs frequently in phrases like same-sex couples, same-sex dating, and same-sex marriage. Both usages are acceptable to the Usage Panel. | 1 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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