I was sitting with the staff of Left Coast Theatre Co. a few weeks ago discussing how best to market our small Gay theatre group.  Sorry, our Gay and Lesbian theater group.  Sorry again, our Gay, Lesbian and Bi-Sexual group.  Sorry still again, our Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgender theater group.

And none of that is right.  By the time we finished adding, I found we could potentially be an LGBTQQAI (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning and – hell, I don’t even remember what the “A” and the “I” stand for) theater company.  

I know I’ve gotten on this soap box before, but the problem hasn’t gone away and I haven’t written about this in six months, so I think it’s time for another round.

First off, I don’t have an issue with being inclusive.  I’ve also always been a huge fan of specificity in language.  But people, we’ve got to be reasonable.  We’re about two steps away from just naming every non-straight person on the planet by name.

It’s just not practical.  For letters is about the limit for anyone to take in. More than that is cumbersome to those of us in the community and absolutely meaningless to most people on the outside.  I seriously doubt your uncle Ralph who, even in 2013, still rolls his eyes and uses air quotes when uses words like “girls” and “ladies” then self-corrects to “women” is ever going to even learn what LGBT means, much less a whole alphabet following that.

It’s not that I think anyone should be excluded from the party; we just need to give up our need to get so far down in the reeds.  People on the outside aren’t concerned with the nuances of differences between being Gay or Lesbian or Queer or whatever and they’re never going to.

LGBTQQAI isn’t an acronym.  It’s like a secret code that no one wants to break.  Worse, it’s like we’ve given ourselves an eight-word name that takes too long to say and carries so much specificity that it makes me feel like Brigitte von Trapp.

Confused?  Then you may not actually be Gay.  But I’ll explain.

Brigitte is the one who stops all the other von Trapps while they’re happily parroting “So Do La Fa Mi Do Re” and says – quite logically – “But it doesn’t mean anything.”

And what does Maria say?  “So we put in words.”  Words!  What a brilliant idea!  How about we name ourselves?  It’s been done for us in the past.  “Queer,” “fag,” homo.”  Why can’t we pick one for ourselves?  One that everyone knows means all the people who aren’t straight.

At this point, I don’t even care much what the word is.  Some of us have tried to reclaim “queer,” which I used to hate, but I kind of like now.  I use “mo” a lot, too.  But I’m open.

And remember, we’re supposed to be the creative ones.  Can’t we take a few moments and channel the energy we usually spend on writing and composing and decorating and entertaining on picking a great, positive new name for this group of people that we all know are totally awesome?

Think outside the box.  As long as we agree and do a good job marketing it, we can pick anything.  How about colors?  We could all be “Pinks” or “Purples” or “Vermilions.”  Randomly, I suggested to a friend that we could be “Joans.”  He took the Crawford angle and ran with it, which is fine.   But we could be anything.

What I want to warn against is using anything that’s literal.  That’s where we get into trouble and wind up with long, painful, useless monikers.  Nothing about men, nothing about women, nothing about body parts, nothing about what may or may not be buzzing around in our heads.  Just something cool and affirmative and fun that we can all rally around with a minimum of the “yeah buts” that we liberals are much, much, much too fond of employing.

On your marks.  Get set.  Create!  Oh, and agree!