So should we retire “openly gay?”

I put the question to Tracy Baim, the publisher of the Chicago Reader. She also founded and co-owns the LGBTQ newspaper Windy City Times.

“It absolutely depends on the context,” she said. “I totally agree it’s not something you would use as frequently as in the past. There are so many other ways to say the same thing without making it feel like it’s a secret or has some kind of negative connotation. But there are some times when that’s the best phrase.”

In a nuanced feature story, Baim said, it may make more sense to skip the description and mention, say, that the female candidate has a wife. In a brief news story, on the other hand, the term is acceptable shorthand.

“Sometimes ‘openly gay’ or ‘openly queer’ or ‘openly LGBTQ’ makes sense,’ ” she said, “especially if there are other closeted folks running. It’s also an important qualifier because you don’t always know who the first gay person was in a position — but you would know who the first openly gay person is.”

Sexual orientation is only one way people define themselves, and in many contexts it doesn’t matter. But it’s a piece of an identity, one that only recently has been safe to claim.

In Chicago’s mayoral race — which pits two African-American women, one of them gay, against each other — it’s not frivolous to note that Chicago will soon have its first African-American female mayor and possibly it’s first openly gay mayor.

“All of those are historic,” Baim said. “All of these identities are extremely relevant. In this case, people who would be criticizing the use of any identity are simplifying our society when we’re just not there yet.”

That’s a key phrase: We’re just not there yet.

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