Here’s a pop quiz for you: do you recognize any of these organizations and know why they were created? Organizations such as: Long Beach Pride, LIFE Lobby, MECLA, ECCO, HRC, EQCA, Pride Festival, LGBT, LGBTQ, Log Cabin, CAPE, ACT-UP, Victory Fund, The Center LB.

Give up? Chances are if you did not recognize any or all you’re in with the majority of people. Here are two important points about all of them, (1) they came into existence to promote gay and lesbian/LGBT causes and, (2) not one of them has the word “gay” or “lesbian” in their promotional title. Not one, and some have been around 30 years now. The only gay and lesbian organization that did was created in 1989, Access Now for Gay and Lesbian Equality. However, it was more famously known and referred to by its acronym ANGLE.

It was intended that it be that way. Good reasons once, but they’ve now overrun their usefulness — the names no longer reflect the stature and progress made in the LGBTQ community.

In the late 1970s when Log Cabin Republicans formed to help fight the anti-gay Briggs initiative, and throughout the ’80s and ’90s few, if any, politicians wanted to be publicly associated with a gay and lesbian organization. Innocuous, virtuous, innocent enough names were created to shield the fact that these were gay organizations, to all but insiders.

This was not done out of “best-marketing practices” that publicly promote, as we commonly associate the goal of product branding to do. No, it was created out of fear and necessity. Most all gay and lesbian-sympathetic politicians knew it was politically toxic at best, suicidal at worst, to be seen supporting a gay rights organization or to receive their endorsement. Their opponent would clobber them with it, usually successfully. As recently as 1996, Bob Dole—afraid of alienating his base—infamously returned a campaign donation check to his presidential campaign from the Log Cabin Republicans. Dole wasn’t the first, and wouldn’t be the last for quite a while longer.

Likewise, for a long time, large mainstream corporate donors didn’t include gay and lesbian organizations among their charitable contributions. Liquor and condom companies were the only brave ones in the early years. Mainstream corporations feared upsetting their market share, shareholders or even some employees. They too found comfort in giving to gay and lesbian organizations with obscure names. They hoped the contribution would fly under their corporate stakeholders’ radar.

But that time for enabling others’ fears about us and hiding behind obscure names is long past.

The 32nd annual Long Beach Pride celebration will be held over two days this coming weekend. It’s a hugely entertaining civic event and important expression of civil rights, attracting over 80,000 people during the two day celebration. After the Long Beach Grand Prix, it’s the second-most attended event in the City of Long Beach.

On Sunday, the Pride Parade runs along Ocean Boulevard from Bluff Park to downtown. Banners have been attached to utility poles for some time now indicating the coming event. But neither the festival nor the banners say “gay” or “lesbian.”

The purpose of most parades, of which I’m aware, are self-evident: St. Patrick’s, Martin Luther King, Cinco De Mayo, Independence (July fourth), Columbus Day and Macy’s Thanksgiving. But not the “Pride” parade. Pride in who or what?

Indeed, there once was a time when the City of Long Beach wasn’t proud to have the festival and parade at all. The permitting process for these events was more difficult and restrictive. Even though it is the second-largest in the city, before 2000, the City refused to include information about the Pride festival and parade in its promotional materials.

The City has evolved into a longstanding proud partner now. That other time is long past, too.

Last October, I was watching the NBC affiliate in very gay-friendly Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley. The station ran a 30 second Public Service Announcement (PSA) in support of their upcoming Pride festival and parade. Kudos to them, I thought at first. Then I was stunned. Sure I missed something. So I watched it very carefully the next time and the next. Not once in 30 seconds did the station’s PSA mention the words “gay” and “lesbian.” It was a celebration about diversity, equality, our city coming together.

A viewer would never know it was an LGBTQ festival. I was shocked. An NBC affiliate doing this in 2014?! Shortly thereafter, they ran additional PSAs that happily contained “gay” and “lesbian,” saving me an irate call to the station. But that’s when it first hit me that the vagueness of “Pride” lends itself to everything and nothing. Because it is not firmly branded as “gay” Pride to the general public.

The time for fearing gay-branding in vast public forums, let alone television, is long past as well. But it starts with the LGBTQ community. We must stop perpetuating the eunuch-like vagary of Pride.

Several years back on a trip to Italy with my younger sister’s family, I was surprised by all the “gay pride” flags flying on the drive into Rome from Naples. So much so that I finally said something to them all about how awesome it was to see so many gay flags flying in neighborhoods throughout the Eternal City. It looked like West Hollywood, as block after block had Pride flags flying from home balconies. I loved it.

At our hotel I asked the front desk why all the “gay pride” flags were flying throughout the city. It was explained they were not gay pride flags but “world peace” flags. The two flags are identical except “world peace” reverses the order of the multi-colored stripes. Who knew? Not me, and did I feel stupid and a little let down. I also thought if I can get “my” flag wrong, how many straight folk in America remained in the dark about the colorful Pride flag draped in a painful, difficult but now successful civil rights struggle?

From New York to Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, Pride flags, web pages and promo titles boldly shout PRIDE at the reader. Some, like San Diego, have LGBT embedded in their tiny logo. Miami says “gay” but in small print.

To me, in all these examples, the conclusion is that even today we cannot assume the general public knows what “Pride” is about. Anecdotally, I’m continually surprised how many of my friends and relatives do not even know. Then again, why should I be surprised, when it was a conscious decision in creating these organizations and events to obscure their purpose?

That has to change.

I like to believe today the branding is preserved out of historical comfort and convenience not the fear and necessity in which it was first birthed.

“Pride” has become a noun. If you say, “Are you going to the Pride festival and parade this weekend?” anyone in the LBGTQ community will know what you mean. Ask a straight person, chances are they won’t.

By the end of June, most observers believe the U.S. Supreme Court will make marriage equality a constitutional right. We have come so far so fast, thanks to many things, including the once wise way courageous gay and lesbian leaders carefully, quietly branded the cause and created allies in politics and corporations, easing them into publicly allying themselves with our cause.

But that time is long past as well.

Put “gay” or “gay and lesbian” into these titles. Whatever one’s orientation – festival, parade, organization – it will be understood. “Gay” and “lesbian” is part of the American lexicon familiar to all. It’s a simple marketing decision meant to exclude no one. Just leading with that which is most familiar. In time, LGBTQ will come into its own with America as a brand.

Today, now, there’s no true pride unless it’s expressed loud and proud to everyone, not just to each other. We’ve earned it. We’ve arrived. It’s time.