By John Mack Freeman
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has rejected an appeal from representatives of the LGBT community to control the “.gay” top-level domain.
ICANN controls the development and use of top-level domain names such as .biz, .eco, .ninja, etc. While most of these domains are auctioned off to the highest bidder, ICANN’s controlling body does allow for communities to take control of relevant domains if they can prove it applies to them. ICANN had previously rejected community calls for control of the “.gay” domain, and after reviewing a repeal this week, it had the following to say (via PinkNews):
A second evaluation conducted on behalf of ICANN this week found that ‘.gay’ could not be applied to the LGBT community, because the LGBT community includes “male or female homosexuals, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, ally and many other terminology”.
ICANN said: “The Community Priority Evaluation panel has determined that the applied-for string does not identify or match the name of the community as defined in the application, nor is it a well known short-form or abbreviation of the community. It therefore does not meet the requirements.”
It added: “The Panel has determined that [.gay] does not sufficiently identify some members of the applicant’s defined community, in particular transgender, intersex, and ally individuals.
“Transgender, intersex, and ally individuals are not likely to consider ‘gay’ to be their ‘most common’ descriptor, as the applicant claims.
“These groups are most likely to use words such as ‘transgender’, ‘trans’, ‘intersex’, or ‘ally’ because these words are neutral to sexual orientation, unlike ‘gay’.
“Both within the community and outside of it, such as in the media, acronyms such as ‘LGBT’, ‘GLBT’, ‘LGBTQ’, or ‘LGBTQIA’ are used to denote a group of individuals that includes those described above, i.e. transgender, intersex and ally individuals.”
