Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

It is always nice when someone acknowledges your work, your vision or even just you. I’ve written in the past about my appreciate for the Keystone Alliance Gaylife Newsletter based in the Johnstown area. So I am pleased to be among the honorees in their 2016 Reader’s Choice Awards.

What’s really exciting for me is that #AMPLIFY took top honors as Best GLBT Media/Publication with this blog coming in second place. The blog has won before and placed before, but this time I beat myself. That’s funny.

It is also a lovely honor to be a runner up in several categories.

• Lesbian of the Year
• GLBT Person of the Year
• Favorite GLBT Social Media
• LGBT Couple of the Year (with Laura)

These are very much appreciated and I am grateful to the website readers for their support and encouragement.

But there’s something else that I must point out. This year brought two new categories: Bi, Trans, or Queer Person of the Year and Bi, Trans or Queer Community Organization of the Year.

It is a lovely thing to see who won and who placed in these categories. And it is equally interesting to see who and which groups were not on the final winners list.

I was struck by the impact Roots Pride had on the awards. Not only did RP win along with several noticeable runners up (Joy KMT, Garden of Peace, Dyke and Trans March) but it is noticeable who/what didn’t win. I suspect the message of Roots Pride resonated with a lot of people in the Altoona-Johnstown corridor and that larger rural queer and trans readership base of the newsletter. It suggests that ‘unity in the community’ has to start from a place of truth, not delusions and illusions and oppression and a lack of accountability. The winning and nominations are nice, but the transformation is even more striking. The work everyone is doing is visible in that way.

The foundation has been shaken. Trust in that.

And keep moving forward.