The news about the future of .GAY turned a little brighter this past week following very productive meetings at ICANN 51 in Los Angeles. The entire dotgay team participated in productive exchanges that helped elevate larger concerns over the inconsistency of the Community Priority Evaluations (CPE) like .GAY.

Hope arrived during the final day of ICANN 51 when the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) offered advice to the ICANN Board that an appeals process should be considered for community applicants who were failed in CPE. Gay media has also done an amazing job reporting and raising awareness on the issue. Headlines and tweets have clearly made ICANN uncomfortable, especially as the US government prepares to hand over the IANA contracts to ICANN. With less than a year before the transition, the whole world has eyes on ICANN. CPE results on strings like .GAY are not helping ICANN's plight.

dotgay will participate immediately in a Reconsideration Request with ICANN, which allows for close examination of how the CPE rules were applied during evaluation. Pressure from governments participating in the GAC have offered advice encouraging ICANN to consider an appeals process and the coming months should provide insight on whether the ICANN Board accepts the advice. Additional accountability mechanisms are also available to dotgay prior to an auction being imposed, and we'll be sure to keep you posted on our progress.

Here is how you can help right now: