I've never really liked The Gay Rapids Express. I like the publication (obviously) but I don't like the name. What about lesbians? Or bisexuals? Aren't they included?

My ex, Ed, who started this whole GRX thing up a couple years ago, says that he went with this name because he liked the play on words, referring to the city-within-a-city that the queer community was. Except that Ed didn't use the word queer; he insists on being called gay.

Let's face it. Gay leaves out a lot of people. Gay and lesbian does too. Even gay/lesbian/bisexual excludes a lot of people who would be welcome as queer, but don't like those old stuffy categories.

We could try to come up with a "laundry list" that includes everyone. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, asexual, S-M, sex worker, naturist.... But why waste all that space and time when a single word says it all?

According to my dictionary, queer means "differing from what is usual or normal". It includes anyone whose view of sexuality goes beyond once-a-week man/woman missionary-position sex. That's what the so-called "gay liberation" movement is all about, allowing us to accept our sexuality, whatever it is!

Sure, queer has some negative feelings to some people, but most of us have felt the same way about gay or lesbian at some point in our lives, and those words are OK! Why not this one? Let's take this word and adopt it as a term for us. It's for all of us!

Arthur, you ignorant slut.*
* For those not up on late-70's late-night TV: That line was a joke. Rent some "Best of Saturday Night Live" tapes and you'll get it.

I've never really understood why self-described queers think all of us should embrace a single word like that one to describe ourselves.

You argue that gay, lesbian, or even bisexual leaves out people who ought to feel included in our community. True, but so does queer.

It excludes a young person who hasn't come to grips with their sexuality, for whom queer is a taunt they face every day. It excludes an older woman for whom even lesbian is dangerous-sounding. It excludes a middle-aged suburban gay couple who may have voted republican last year. It excludes straight parents who take offense at hearing their child called queer.

It excludes all sorts of people... those who - for any of a variety of reasons - don't identify with the term queer.

So (you might ask, challengingly), what term should we use?

I don't think there is one. Our communities are very diverse ones, which just happen to overlap and interact. There's no way you can sum all of us up in a single word or short phrase. You can try to do it with words like queer (or gay, before it), but those terms gloss over our individuality.

So instead of using simplistic labels, we should instead describe the people we're talking about. And if you want people to feel included, call them whatever they want to be called, whether it's gay, lesbian, homosexual, womyn, bi, dyke, faggot... or even queer.