A US councilman has said he did not know the city’s transit alert system was alive when he sent a mass email.

WPXI.com reports Matt Stanizweski, from Pennsylvania, sent an email: ‘Alert: This is a test. Bryan is gay.’

City of Washington mayor Brenda Davis criticized the councilman, saying he acted in an ‘inappropriate and unprofessional’ manner from an elected official.

Instead of apologizing, Staniszwewski said he did not use the word in the homosexual context and was just trying to point out his college friend was ‘happy’.

However, he did admit he did not know the alert system used for traffic and important notices was no longer in a testing environment.

He slammed Davis, releasing a statement saying: ‘It’s offensive and unprofessional for the mayor to automatically assume one definition of the word when there are multiple definitions.’

In response, Davis said she believes the semantics of the word ‘gay’ is not an appropriate alternative to use for ‘happy’ in today’s world.

On his talk show, comedian Jimmy Kimmel said the excuse was perfectly acceptable ‘if you are in the fourth grade.’

Bryan has not yet been identified.