Washington City Paper recently ran an article titled “Ladies First: Does D.C. Have a GLBT Community or an LGBT One?” The article focuses on the decision by The DC Center for the GLBT Community to change its name to The DC Center for the LGBT Community:
DC Center - Old Logo
DC Center - New Logo
Why the concern over the placement of a couple of letters? David Mariner , Executive Director of the DC Center, says that his organization’s acronym switch-up is “not a big deal either way,” but that the Center made the change “to be consistent with the other national organizations we are affiliated with.”
The article explores the usage of both acronyms in other instances, which brings us to Metro Weekly. Sean Bugg, co-publisher of Metro Weekly, is quoted:
The DC Center’s switch isn’t the only indication that the District is now batting for LGBT. Metro Weekly also recently began favoring the acronym; Bugg says the change from GLBT to LGBT was codified in its style guide about six months ago. “I hesitate to change our style guide without having a really strong reason for it,” says Bugg. The rationale: Metro Weekly’s style was becoming increasingly inconsistent with community standards, and ‘GLBT’-schooled Metro Weekly reporters kept returning with quotes from ‘LGBT’-happy subjects. “A lot of people would be using ‘LGBT’ in a quote, and we would be using ‘GLBT’ as a matter of style,” says Bugg. “It became a bit awkward and confusing.”
Kevin Naff, editor-in-chief of the Washington Blade, is also quoted:
Also confusing: navigating the ever-expanding roster of initials that can be added to the standard four-letter-acronym. Local newspaper the Washington Blade has an evolving approach to the acronym. According to Editor in Chief Kevin Naff, the paper “uses LGBT in stories and headlines.” In its branding, however, the paper now tacks on an extra Q.
“We’ve recently added the Q to our tagline in response to reader inquiries and concerns that those ‘questioning’ their sexual orientation were excluded from coverage,” Naff says. “We have not added the Q to standard references in stories, mostly because the alphabet soup starts to get unwieldy.”
The NLGJA stylebook supplement does not give explicit guidance, but only lists “LGBT” as an option, perhaps revealing a preference? In a previous post, I already revealed my bias in favor of “LGBT” usage. Which acronym do most NLGJAers prefer?
