system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Gay men are gay, gay women are lesbians, why is this?
gpt
"Lesbian" in this sense is a word that was around slightly before the modern usage of "gay" and is more specific than it, so it's stuck around. It's in reference to the ancient Greek poet Sappho, who was from the island of Lesbos and wrote on among other things female homosexuality. In the 1800s people started using "sapphism" and "lesbianism" to refer to that, by inspiration from her. The modern usage of "gay" first appeared in the late 1800s and caught on more in the 1900s. It's more general, but because there was already a word for gay females specifically it's also used to refer to gay males specifically in e.g. "the gay and lesbian community". After all, those gays who are not lesbian are generally male.