2018 Was 20gayteen, 2019 Was 20biteen, Now Let’s Name 2020

Feature image by Zackary Drucker as part of Broadly’s Gender Spectrum Collection.

As the 2019 calendar slowly runs out of days, we’ll soon be swimming in end-of-year (even end-of-decade) lists. While everyone else is in a haze of nostalgia for the recent past, I find myself preoccupied with a looming, critical decision for next year that will surely impact the lives of every queer person on the planet: what extremely gay title should be bestowed upon 2020?

Starting the queer naming trend a couple of years back, lesbian Jesus Hayley Kiyoko famously anointed 2018 as 20gayteen. Thanks to the proliferation of the bisexual bob, and Stephanie Beatriz’s global takeover, it was naturally succeeded this year by 20biteen. But what should 2020 be?!

The first thing that popped into my head was TwentyBenty, but that seemed both too obvious and too generic to have much bite. Surely it couldn’t be too hard to come up with something the internet would instantly agree was the perfect choice.

Within thirty seconds I was floundering. When I hit rock bottom somewhere between TwentyGhenty (the year you take a mini-break to a Belgian cathedral city) and TwentyFermenty (the year my wife’s kombucha, kefir and sourdough starters multiply exponentially and eject me from my own flat), I realised it was time to call for help.

Fortunately, I had a panel of experts at hand, so I took the only logical course of action, which was to dump them with the problem while I went for a nap. Here’s what they came up with!

Vanessa: I…truly have no idea. All I can think of is “20sexy” which is A not my mood and B doesn’t even rly rhyme

Jehan: 2020 Vision: Seeing Queerly.

Vanessa: I want one that is like 20tired. 2tired2wenty

Christina Tucker: LezDoIt2020?????

Drew Gregory: Two Zero Too Queero

Shelli Nicole: 20cunty?

Drew Gregory: Yesssssssss

Abeni: i’m not sure how i feel about cunty in general as a term. I get that drag queens and maybe others are “reclaiming” the term (can men reclaim a term never applied to them?) but it’s totes possible I’m missing something!

Carolyn: Two Zero Too Queero also benefits from probably not getting censored on social media

Drew Gregory: The fun part about 20biteen and 20gayteen is it’s still said how you’d say the year but my suggestion doesn’t work like that. Whether or not it’s internet safe 20cunty has my heart. If there was ever a reason to fully reclaim cunty I’d say a lack of off rhymes with twenty is good enough for me.

Molly: for me it’ll be 20blunty

Drew Gregory: 20LGBT is too much of a stretch right? It has the tee sound!

Riese: What if it wasn’t an English word. I feel like other languages have more words that rhyme with 20

Abeni: I wonder if we end up landing on the idea that it’s over and it had a good run. Like remember in the 2000s how every new year’s party had big glasses that you could look through the middle 00s, and then in 2010 they tried to make it work with the 1 being in the middle, and in 2011 they really tried it but failed and then it was just over… like, it had a good run. Is that too sad?

Vanessa: Abeni I don’t want us to be the ones to pronounce it dead that is too sad 4 me :(

Carolyn: we could always call it twenty-denti and make it all about the importance of dental dams in safer sex

Vanessa: I have a vision of you like campaigning very hard for twentydenti, handing out dental dams with the slogan on it in our office, if we had one.

Heather: twentyplenty and it’s the year all the problematic people start coming out

Laneia: HEATHER

Vanessa: omg. HEATHER. I do like twentyplenty. There’s like a nice lack-of-scarcity-mentality around it.

Abeni: lol i like twenty plenty

Vanessa: Twenty(Not)Gently and it’s me crusading against vanilla sex?
(I’m kidding everyone should follow their hearts if vanilla sex turns you on I love that for you!!!!!)

Abeni: there’s plenty of love to go around. plenty of space in the community for all of us

Vanessa: I’m feeling good about plenty

Carolyn: that seems like a natural continuation of the energy behind 20gayteen and 20biteen

Shelli Nicole: 20Smutty/20slutty? Wait – I think I’m just being like Molly and saying what it will be for me. Also would love to see a laminated handout on twenty-denti

Adrian: I love twentyplenty. Abundance and shit!!!

Molly: twennyjenny. that’s for laneia

Dani Janae: Twenty plenty is good but I LOVE 20smutty. It’s the year of good sex and buying smut

Vanessa: I’m in!!

Laneia: 2020 does feel like a good time for me to go full jenny, thank you molly

Vanessa: TWENNYSHENNY

Kayla: $20money$ let’s get paid this year lol

Drew Gregory: This might be, um, too simple, but could 2020 be 20twenT and it’s just the year trans people take over

Vanessa: drew, you genius

Drew Gregory: I mean if 8 was gay and 9 was bi, we’re just making our way through the acronym!
(also excited for ten years from now when we can all agree on 20thirsty)

Vanessa: extremely bold of you to assume we’ll still be alive and kicking it on planet earth in 20thirsty

Drew Gregory: We might be actually thirsty

So, what do you think? Will next year be the bountiful TwentyPlenty? Will it be 20twenT, the year of trans takeover? Will it be one of the many fiendishly witty suggestions I expect to roll in to the comment section any minute now? Are we missing the bigger picture and we should actually be naming the whole decade with a gayed-up version of the roaring twenties?

Speak now and make sure we’re set for the queerest possible 2020!

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Sally

Sally lives in the UK. Her work has been featured in a Korean magazine about queer people and their pets, and a book about haunted prisons. She never intended for any of this to happen.

Sally has written 81 articles for us.

58 Comments

    • Same. Twenty Plenty, a cornucopia of good things for all Straddlers. Abundance of nourishment for our bodies and souls

  3. The 1890s were nicknamed the “Gay Nineties,” and I’d like to bring some of that energy with us into the 2020s

  6. Feeling “ 2tired2wenty” and “Two Zero Too Queero“
    I’m liking the mouth feel of TwentyTwentyTittyTime tho.

  7. *What if it wasn’t an English word. I feel like other languages have more words that rhyme with 20*

    I just checked for Dutch. We say “twintig-twintig”. Suggestions are: “twintig-pissig” (twenty-pissy – not LGBTQ+ specific, but still – mood) or “twintig-vunzig” (twenty-filthy, often in a sexual way. Combining the languages could give us “twenty-abstinentie” (twenty-abstinence). Not a fan!

    I don’t think Dutch is the way to go here!

    Count my vote for twenty plenty and 20twenT! Our trans siblings deserve their year to shine!

  18. Wait, how do y’all pronounce “twenty”? Because a lot of these… don’t rhyme for me? Like I would say Twenty-Denti as “twunty dinty”. Unless they’re supposed to be slant rhymes? Or maybe I’m just too Southern?

    Anywhoodles, I vote for either 20twenT or 20hunty.

    • Twen rhymes with hen, then, when, Ben, men, den, Zen, glen, Venn
      ty rhymes with be, three, we, gee, see, sea, me, she, he, tea

      My accent is Australian (I think these rhymes are consistent for all Australian accents, but I might be mistaken).

  20. Let’s not limit ourselves to rhymes with twenty — “thousand” is an easier word to play with. :)

    E.g.

    TwoTranscend Twenty
    TwoNowSin Twenty

    • Agreed. Total show stopper.

      I’m here for the Trans (including non-binary) reppin, given gay and bi history.

      Like, it’s effing 20TwenT, get with the program on trans rights and representation (I holler at the world/bigots)!!!!!!

  25. Brilliant suggestions all around! Maybe we can have a sub-category of 20TwenT that’s 20tweenT for supporting kickass 10-12 year old trans kids (and beyond)?

  29. “Kayla: $20money$ let’s get paid this year lol”

    Let’s hope this means AS editors will pay their writers living wages instead of spending the money on memberships to The Wing in Weho. Right?

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