UN group supports community .gay bid
An organization representing staff members of the United Nations has come out in support of dotgay LLC’s struggling community application for the .gay gTLD.
UN-GLOBE comprises UN employees who identify as “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and inter-sex”. Its primary goals are pushing for equal rights for these groups within the UN system.
In a letter to ICANN (pdf) earlier this month, the organization said it supports dotgay’s application, despite its Community Priority Evaluation being rejected twice.
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s judging panel has kicked out both of dotgay’s CPEs on the grounds that the applicant’s definition of “gay” includes straight people, and straight people aren’t gay.
But UN-GLOBE, echoing dotgay’s own view, wrote:
We also express our disagreement over the results of the Community Priority Evaluation of October 8, 2015 that rejected dotgay LCC’s community application based on its narrow analysis of the term gay. The term gay should be understood globally instead, as it is generally understood by the internationally diverse lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and ally (LGBTQIA) community represented in dotgay LLC’s application.
It might be worth noting that UN-GLOBE makes no mention of its own membership including “allies” — that is, people who are not LGBTQI but nevertheless support equal rights — in its letter or on its web site.
dotgay currently has an outstanding Request for Reconsideration against its latest CPE loss, which is expected to be decided by ICANN’s Board Governance Committee on Monday.
If ICANN closes the door on more appeals, the .gay contention set will go to auction where its rivals are Rightside, Top Level Design and Minds + Machines.
One way or another, there will be a .gay gTLD, the only question is whether it will be restricted to approved “gay community” members or open to all.
It should be open to all so that anybody can decide to join at anytime, Lord have mercy.