Do You Count?

In December 2008, I read an article on entrepreneur.com called “10 Advertising Words to Avoid in 2009.” The article provided advice to advertisers about the words they shouldn’t use in ad copy. It was a helpful roll call of unnecessary, often meaningless words that tend to be overused in advertisements – my favorites were “synergy” and “drinkability.” 

I saved the article thinking it would be good inspiration to use in writing my own list of “10 words to avoid in LGBT marketing in 2009 or any year.” I haven’t written that list yet, but a post on AMERICAblog yesterday caught my attention and made me think I ought to at least start that conversation again. The post, written by my friend John Aravosis, focuses on the use of one of the words that will certainly be on my list of top 10 words to avoid: “lifestyle.” 

A U.S. Census spokesperson was quoted in the Long Beach Press Telegram on Sunday using the term “lifestyle” in relation to LGBT people as a rationale for why the Census will not count LGBT people in the 2010 census: “’This is all about the numbers. This is not about lifestyle or anything else,’ says U.S. Census spokeswoman Cynthia Endo.”

The U.S. Census does not explicitly ask respondents if they are LGBT, even though it does count unmarried partners living together and other statistics that could be expanded to include LGBT-specific information.

The lack of inclusion of LGBT people in the Census has long been a source of conflict and controversy: if you don’t acknowledge us, do you even believe we exist? If you don’t count us, do we even matter? We pay taxes, so we obviously exist, but apparently we don’t matter as LGBT people, at least as far as the U.S. Census is concerned.

“Lifestyle” is a term often used by anti gay organizations when they talk about “the gay lifestyle” or “people living that lifestyle.” The implication in this context is always a negative one as if LGBT people choose our orientation or the fact that we live our lives is somehow less worthy than others. Using this term in this context is really only appropriate if you believe being heterosexual is a “lifestyle,” which is, of course, ridiculous. As my friend Joy Silver of RainbowVision Properties says in her promotional materials “It’s not a lifestyle, it’s your life.”

This may sound like a minor offense, but consider the source: when an official of the U.S. government legitimizes the use of this kind of language it gives credibility to the concept.  And regardless of who says it, using the term "lifestyle" in this way points to a much larger problem: minimizing, ignoring or otherwise diminishing our relationships does the same thing to our lives. If we’re not worthy of recognition for who we fully are as citizens and taxpayers, what does that say about our value and worth as humans? 

Language matters and words have power. The sooner we all learn that, the better. I'll volunteer to help by offering to lead a discussion on gay and lesbian communications for government communicators.  If you're interested, you know where to find me.

Comments

[Troy - FH Mpls]

I look forward to seeing your list of 10 words to avoid in LGBT marketing and believe it should be widely published! A suggestion, "preference" should be somewhere on the list.

[Ben Finzel]

Thanks Troy. "Preference" is right up on there on my list - good suggestion.

If you, or any of our readers, have other suggestions, please share them with us in the comments. I'll start working on the list and will take all of this other feedback into account.

Thanks again!

[Colm Howard-Lloyd]

Preference is another term many people find offensive; being that it implies your sexualty is merely something you "sometimes prefer to do".

Going off topic slightly the American Family Association likes to refer to LGBT liberation as "the culture war" in its abhorations to the likes of Pepsi to "stay neutral". Absolute nonesense of course implying that you chose who to tolerate rather than embracing everyone.

[Guido]

Troy is, like most of the time, completely right. :)

Preference/Choice must be among the top 3. These terms are abused too often by people who simply don't WANT to understand.

[Catherine Carey]

Yesterday I blogged about slurs after seeing the GLESN PSA featuring Hillary Duff.

Your post gives me something to blog about today.

Thanks!!

Catherine

[Twink]

Thanks, good work!