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Employees at Lonesome's Pizza's former eastside location. The pizzeria now occupies the corner window at Dante's Club, 350 W. Burnside St.

(The Oregonian/file)

A Portland pizzeria has apologized and altered the name of a menu item after complaints from the transgender community.

On Sunday, Planetransgender, a transgender-focused blog,

, calling out the restaurant for naming their bread sticks "tranny stix." A link on the restaurant's sci-fi themed menu page sent viewers to a photo of co-owner Nic Reddy dressed in drag.

Lonesome's Pizza, which delivers to most of Portland from their corner location inside Dante's club, 350 W. Burnside, is known for their fancifully named pizzas -- a cheese pie goes by "1. Lee Majors vs. a barracuda with a bowie knife" -- their kaleidoscopic pizzas and colorfully decorated boxes.

In a comment on the post, Lonesome's co-owner Noah Antieau apologized, writing that he and his business partners had decided to change the name.

"The absolute last thing we ever want to do is upset somebody who's already got a rough road," Antieau wrote. "The idea of doing that makes us all feel pretty horrible. So, if you're transgender, we're all apologies. ... Long story short, we'll come up with some other sophomoric, hopefully inoffensive name (anybody with an idea for a breadstick name is more then invited to throw something out)."

"We're dumb, no question, but we're learning.

"

Reached by phone Wednesday, Antieau said they named the bread sticks and posted the photo of Reddy for a laugh, not intending to hurt anyone.

"We only started getting emails about it three days ago," Antieau said. "To be honest, at first we thought it was typical sanctimonious Portlanders. But then some of the people were really heartfelt."

After the apology, the

.

"Thanks for your understanding," wrote Jill Seale. "Most businesses wouldn't give the time of day to trans-sensitive issues. Next time I'm downtown and hankering for some 'za, you guys are at the top of my list."

So, what will the bread sticks now be called?

"Honestly, we're thinking of getting rid of the names, just go with the numbers," Antieau said. "When we first started, our first menu was a hand written paper that we xeroxed down at Kinko's. It was mostly names of our ex-girlfriends and their numbers. Since we opened, we've gone through 30 different versions of the menu. It's funny to hear people call. Half the time, we don't even know what they're ordering."

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