I found this in the wiki:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:gay

As you write, maybe it’s better to use:

lgbtq=yes/only

lgbtq:men=yes/only

Personally, I think lgbtq=designated is the best. Designated (at least in the access tags) doesn’t necessarily mean that it was designated by some official body, just that that is how the space is used in practice by people on the ground.

My main concern would be that LGBTQ is too broad of a designation (what if there are gay-specific bars, or trans-specific bar) but I don’t know much about the community to know if that’s realistically an issue.

@ChristianSW I covered problems with the gay=* tag in my first email, namely the LGBTQ community is larger than just gay (men).

@Alan Trick: There are a minority of LGBTQ venues aimed at certain subsets of the LGBTQ community, I think that could be solved with lgbtq:X=(primary/no/only)" etc. (e.g. lgbtq:lesbian=primary -> mainly a lesbian venue. lgbtq:lesbian=no -> no lesbians allowed. lgbtq:lesbian=only only lesbians (though I'm unsure about 'only')), so further details can be tagged. lgbtq=primary/designed/whatever` can mean “the LGBTQ in general”.

I thought about =designated, and it’s in keeping with OSM conventions. I thought it was only for things officially designed that by an official body. LGBTQ venues aren’t like that. 🤔

I’m mostly familiar with “designated” in the context of bike trails. Often these designations aren’t official because there’s no official body responsible for them. The wiki page does say “typically by a government” but I think this is a case where ground truth is more important.

FWIW, right now gay=* seems most popular, with 686 tags. I agree lgbtq or some variant would be more inclusive, but you might be able to learn something by looking at how gay has been used so far here: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/gay#overview

In my not-so-extensive experience as a cis gay guy, restrictions and status (friendly vs preferred vs advertised) expected/enforced by services, dance clubs and sex clubs usually apply on:

• orientation: straight-only, gay-only, gay-and-bi, mixed
• orientation social status: out, closeted
• current gender: male/female/intersex
• birth gender: cissex/transsex
• dressing gender expression: crossdresser
• practice: fetish=yes/no/[list]
• age

Reality allows for any combination of these and many more (looking at LGBTTQQIAAP and the Genderbread Person :P), but some are really common and some are very rare. In OSM we usually want both simplicity and expressiveness. I think a scheme inspired by access:conditional could bring interesting possibilities, so I’ll do some research to try to expand on this.

@ftrebrien I’m suggesting lgbtq:*=*. So one can map lgbtq=primary for a simple, general case, and go into more details with lgbtq:lesbian=primary, lgbtq:gay_male=no, etc., etc.

Why these 5 letters and no others. I prefer a specific word that can unify everyone. Maybe queer or “rainbow”.

@Carlos LGBTQ = lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer. It’s a common acronym. Not all people identify (or want to identify) as queer, since it has often been used against them.

I’m open to using other acronyms, but I suspect we’ll always come up short. 🙂