Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

We split the vote!

I am honored to be voted Lesbian of the Year and for the blog to be voted Best LGBT Media Publication by readers of the Keystone Alliance Gaylife Newsletter. My health struggles prevented me from being there in person last night, but I am very happy for the winners and nominees. We’ve been honored in the past and always look forward to these awards.

I’m a little biased, but I happen to think this blog is one of the top LGBT media publications in the region even if we are not a traditional media outlet. We certainly collectively strive for excellence and fairness, even if we don’t get too bogged down in spelling and Oxford commas (shhhh, don’t tell Trish I wrote that.) Our copy editor is on permanent hiatus due to lack of getting paid.

Blogging matters. Here in Western Pennsylvania, as you know, we have no LGBTQ media. Blogging doesn’t fill that gap, but it does sort of plug it a little bit. But we are more than plugs to fill a gap in supports. Blogs examine and critique our collective experiences through the lens of a citizen journalist. They offer context, perspective, dissent and even outright defiance of the status quo.

We need your support to continue this work. Please donate!

Blogging is an art, a science, a method, a madness and a community engagement strategy. We are here not only because we are needed, but because we need to do this – we have to say it, to type it, to share it and to get it out there. Our target audiences might be small, tight-knit circles of people very much like us or the whole world, but they matter to us.

Most blogs last 2-3 years so I’m sort in blogger-crone mode. I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. You’ve been warned. I’m gonna persist.

I am glad to see new efforts like QueerPgh emerging that combine more traditional journalism with the blogging style to create a robust queer news experience.  Please, please be sure to read their site and share their work and support their efforts.

As for Lesbian of the Year, that’s just – wow. I also received that honor in 2010 and it sent me on a quest of sorts to figure out my identity. I’m proud to identify as a lesbian, I’m proud of the lesbians who contribute to AMPLIFY and I’m also proud to identify as queer.  I recognize that’s a sometimes murky grey area that requires constant self-reflection and examination. That’s okay. So do many other parts of my identity.

Thank you for reminding me that blogging lgbtq Pittsburgh as a queer woman does matter.

Congrats to our AMPLIFY contributors for their awards, including Lyndsey Sickler and Viva Valezz, as well as the John DeBartola.

Lyndsey won LGBT Person of the Year (yay!) so I’m thinking we should team up for a speaking tour about queer female and femme identity?

I’ve been Lesbian of the Year twice and TERFd twice. I am definitely doing something right!