Sue

Sue is the founder of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents blog, established in 2005.. She has an MSW from the University in Pittsburgh and a BA in Political Science from Marymount University. Her undergraduate claim to fame is a six month stint as an intern with then Congressman Rick Santorum in 1991. Born and raised in West Mifflin, Sue attended college in Washington DC, then graduate school in Louisiana and ended up in Kentucky doing social service ministry. She returned to Pittsburgh in 1997. She now lives on Pittsburgh’s Northside with her wife, Laura. She was among the first out LGBTQ people named to Pittsburgh’s 40 Under 40 in 2004 and is a graduate of Leadership Development Initiative Class VII. After being fully and permanently disabled in 2010, Sue has continued to serve the community. She founded the Pittsburgh Tote Bag Project to address hunger and environmental issues. In 2015, she launched the #AMPLIFY LGBTQ archive in conjunction with a two-year artist in residence stint with Most Wanted Fine Art. Sue and her wife have fostered over 25 kittens through Pittsburgh CAT and Homeless Cat Management Team, and now manage multiple community cat colonies in their neighborhood. In 2020, Sue cofounded the Pittsburgh MasQUe ProjecT to support the queer and trans community during the pandemic, distributing tens of thousands of face masks and other supplies throughout the region. In 2021, Sue created the #PghCatFolx projects to support neighbors working with community cats. Under that heading came the Dr. John P. Ruffing DVM Pet Food Projects, memorializing one of her very best friends who died in 2007. In 2021, Sue worked with community leaders to develop and establish a 501c3 nonprofit organization, Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities (PLC) where she currently serves as Board President. PLC absorbed the #PghCatFolx projects. Also in 2021, Sue was the first person in history appointed to the City of Pittsburgh LGBTQIA+ Commission and was unanimously elected as one of three inaugural co-chairs. Her blogging has garnered numerous awards Favorite GLBT Media Publication - 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016 (Keystone Alliance Gaylife Newsletter Reader’s Poll) Favorite GLBT Social Media - 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 (Keystone Alliance Gaylife Newsletter Reader’s Poll) Best Local Blogger - 2016, 2019 (Pittsburgh City Paper Reader’s Poll) LGBTQIA Pittsburgh’s Best Blogger - 2020 (SisTersPgh, People’s Pride of Pittsburgh) Outstanding Blog - 2019, 2022 (GLAAD Media Awards) Sue has also personally been honored Person of the Year - The Advocate Magazine, 2022 15 Lesbian Icons - LGBTQ Nation, 2023 LGBTQIA Pittsburgh’s Best Lesbian Activist - SisTersPgh, People’s Pride of Pittsburgh 2022 Sue believes in identifying and filling gaps in supports & services rather than recreating the wheel. She uses both her undergraduate and graduate degrees on a regular basis as a blogger and activist and regularly circulates her 1991 internship photo just to shake things up on her social media feeds. Her own experiences with cPTSD, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and other health challenges have fueled her health blogging and activism. She also writes extensively about her family history, drawing on her amateur genealogy hobby. The blog regularly reviews arts and cultural events as well as exploring restaurants, soap opera storylines, and hyper-local news. Sue and her wife Laura have been together since 2003. They were married on a very cold February 2, 2021 in their backyard at a very small ceremony co-officiated by their pagan priestess friend, Anne, and then-Mayor Bill Peduto. They have six niblings, four in Pittsburgh and two in Philadelphia.

Posts by Sue:

Pittsburgh Cat Ladies

Cat Lady Chronicles – No, That’s not a Maine Coon and Yes, We Do Need Cat Food

March 19, 2021 by
TNR Pittsburgh

Here’s our latest adventures Helena Cassadine seems a little down so we were able to get into a follow-up appointment with Fix’n Wag’n where she had been spayed a year ago. The good news is that she is physically healthy – her teeth are especially excellent. The bad news is that I had to drive […]

Political Q&APolitics

Q&A With Ed Gainey, Candidate for Mayor, City of Pittsburgh

March 19, 2021 by
Ed Gainey Mayor Campaign

Last year, a pro-Trump candidate got the ACDC endorsement in a legislative race, but this year, in endorsing me, the ACDC is supporting a Black candidate for Mayor for the first time in it’s history. What those two results show me is that we are in a fight for the soul of our local party, […]

FamilyHealth

Day One, Year Two: My Obligatory Anniversary Covid-19 Anniversary Post

March 17, 2021 by
Covid-19 Anniversary

On this day in 2020, Laura worked her final full day at her office with the City of Pittsburgh, came home and began to set up her home workspace in our kitchen. She’s in that workspace right now, working. This is what we consider our demarcation of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine. This is day 1, […]

Product Reviews

Review: WAMA Hemp Underwear

March 16, 2021 by
Hemp Underwear

WAMA approached me about reviewing their underwear after reading my review of TomboyX. I have a few items made with hemp material so I thought it was worth a shot. So why hemp underwear? Our mission is to pioneer the hemp underwear industry by making the best hemp undies in the world and constantly improving […]

Health

A Mental Health Milestone For Me

March 15, 2021 by

This is more of a post for me than you, dear reader, but you can read along. Today, I had a teletherapy session and we did some EMDR targeting a difficult closing to my work with the Catholic Church in the 1990’s. It was difficult because they were just awful and terrible and immoral to […]

Health

Of Pandemic Anniversaries: Part One

March 13, 2021 by

While I expected the “anniversary” of the pandemic would be sobering, I did not anticipate the emotional wall I would collide with this month. For the most part, we have had a relatively fortunate time during this horror. Our income didn’t change, we could work from home, we had lots of streaming services, access to […]

Pittsburgh Cat Ladies

Delivering Cat Food to Neighbors in Need

March 12, 2021 by

This was an exhausting, but good week – I had the opportunity to deliver hundreds of pounds of cat food to neighbors managing cat colonies via the Pgh Cat Food Drive. We helped trap one lost cat (see that story here) and we are on the trail of another missing cat who escaped his trap […]

In MemoriamRacial JusticeTrans

23-year-old Black Trans Woman Shot to Death in Cincinnati

March 11, 2021 by
Diamond Kyree Sanders

She was 23-years-old, born and raised in Cincinnati. On March 3, she became the latest Black trans woman murdered in the U.S. Her name was Diamond Kyree Sanders. She also was known as Diamond Nicole. Cincinnati police responded to a report of a person shot on Morrison Avenue around 3:42 a.m., according to a Wednesday […]

Pittsburgh Cat Ladies

How Our Lesbian Wedding Registry Reunited a Missing Cat With His Humans

March 6, 2021 by

In early January, a cat named Buddy escaped from his foster group during a routine transport. He was spotted on the Northside in the Allegheny West neighborhood. In early February, two lesbians also on the Northside got married. One of their wedding registries was primarily cat rescue gear – traps, crates, nets, gloves, food, and […]

Political Q&APolitics

Seeking Political Candidates to Take Our Political Q&A

February 28, 2021 by
Political Q&A

Since 2018, we have published a series of Q&A’s with candidates for all levels of political office – borough councils, school boards, judicial candidates, statewide office, and more. We kicked off our 2021 Primary season via Q&A with Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto earlier this month. And we’ve invited other candidates to participate. Here are the […]