Initialism Policy

  • Our mission statement does not employ any initialism, in order to reflect full inclusivity of all members of and segments within our community. The initialism LGBT was removed in response to community feedback. In particular, younger generations identify in a myriad ways and felt that any label, by its very nature, would be limiting and not include some community members. Our Board of Directors unanimously voted to remove “LGBT” from our mission statement in 2011.
  • We employ the initialism LGBTQ when issuing public statements to the media. We employ LGBTQ, as recommended by the GLAAD Media Reference Guide, with the purpose of clarity and precision when non-community media outlets (i.e., “mainstream” or “non-queer” media) relay our message. This, in particular, is aimed at speaking to straight audiences.
  • We do not police usage of initialisms by authors in our publications. We allow authors, in particular in the Boston Pride Guide, to use the initialism of their choice, or not to use any at all. This is because we do not want to restrict or to emend the voices of our contributors.