Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

So pleased to share that Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents has been selected a finalist in the category of #Oustanding Blog by GLAAD for their 30th GLAAD Media Awards. It is our second nomination.

I get a lot of credit (and blame) for what we’ve accomplished here, but there is a literal village of people who make it possible – folx who help me with technical issues, contributors, proofreaders, consultants, designers, donors, the #AMPLIFY contributors, interviewees, friends, family and my very lovely Ledcat.

Last year’s nomination was amazing. It brought all sorts of new media attention to the blog of a middle-aged white cis queer disabled lady blogger than would ever come my way. It gave me a new opportunity to join the team at the Pittsburgh Current as a contributing columnist. And other new opportunities are on the horizon.

My words matter. I’m not always right and could brush up on my grammar a bit. I miss the mark, but sometimes hit the barn soundly enough to shake a few new truths loose. This blog doesn’t matter just because we rattle the chains, but because we matter – you and me and the other queer person reading this. Average people get to have their say if they choose. That’s a powerful freedom. We see so often how it is abused by bullies, tyrants, absurdly disconnected wealthy people, and people with evil agendas.

Blogs are important because we are not those people – we are the hoi polloi, the populace, the multitude. Some have equated our media form to pamphleteers of the 17th and 18th centuries.  And let us not forget that pamphleteering led to The Federalist Papers and, eventually, Hamilton. I haven’t seen the musical, of course, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s a message to all of us about remembering where we came from – that the collective work of people with words, articulate or otherwise, has this incredible power to transcend everything, to imagine something radically different when we look back to our history and forward to future days.

Did I just compare my blog to Hamilton? Yes, I did, but only because I’ve read The Federalist Papers and even have a copy on my nightstand. I worked really hard for that political science degree and I intend to use it with more deliberation moving forward. And because I’m entering the daily lottery to win those coveted tickets during the Pittsburgh run – for Ledcat – so it’s on my mind.

Congratulations to my co-nominees: Gays With Kids, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, My Fabulouse Disease, and TransGriot. These blogs amplify queer families, HIV+ blogging, Black trans women, and the machinations of the religious right. You should add them to your regular reading.

Also congratulations to fellow Pittsburgher, Billy Porter, on the nomination of his show POSE.

If you are still reading, here are some quick ways you can support blogging and this blog.

1. Follow us on Social Media
2. Share your Western PA LGBTQ story via The AMPLIFY Project
3. Invest in our work – you can hire us to tutor your mom on how to use her phone or bring us on as social media sponsors for your event or even pay us to blog for your business. We use those funds to keep the blog opened and accessible – no paywalls. It also helps to fund the AMPLIFY projects.
4. Make a donation. 
5. Read my column via the Pittsburgh Current.
6. Submit a guest blog post. 
7. Subscribe to the blog.
8. Ask Lynne Hayes Freeland and Pittsburgh Today Live and Lynn Cullen to have us on their respective shows (maybe with Billy?) to talk about all the above?
9. Read the blog on a regular basis.
10. Start (or restart) your own blog. Send me a link and I’ll read it. I promise.
11. Name a cupcake or sandwich after the blog.

Thank you, GLAAD and to those who nominated me in the first place. I am very grateful to write this post and celebrate this accomplishment. And to be nominated along with productions like POSE, The Favourite, and Nanette is just breathtaking … #PittsburghFamous

I encourage you to read this piece by Trish Bendix – Does LGBT Media Have A Future? It’s a dark time for media — LGBT media, especially. What got us here? And how might we survive?