Raven Has Not Told Anyone That She’s Pansexual Because She’s Afraid #AMPLIFY

Washington County

Name:  Raven Age: 24 County of Residence: Washington Preferred Pronouns: she/her How do you describe your identity? I am pansexual. Once I did more reading into bisexuality, I realized I am attracted to everyone, every gender, every sex. Please describe your coming out experience. Where did you find support? What challenges did you face? I have only come out as […]

DJ Scott Is a Gay Black Man Full of Positive Vibes #AMPLIFY

Gay Black Pittsburgh

Read the entire AMPLIFY LGBTQ Q&A archive. AMPLIFY LGBTQ is a new occasional series of blog posts designed to give a “signal boost” to the voices of our LGBTQ neighbors throughout Western Pennsylvania. We are using a Q&A format and will minimize editing their responses. The questions, however, may change as we ask each participant to […]

Sent to Facebook Jail for Anti-Racist Stance But I’ll Be Back

CN – quotes of racial slurs I woke up really late this morning. Ledcat is on vacation this week so built-in alarm clock is not working. 9 AM is too late for my comfort and I had a bad feeling as I rolled out of bed to face the day. Little did I know. I […]

I Just Found My (non) Imaginary Childhood Friend on Facebook

Today’s blogging prompt is a challenge to describe what your imaginary childhood friend’s life would be like now. I didn’t have an imaginary friend, but there was one childhood friend who moved away in second grade. I never saw her again. So for no particular reason, I googled her and up popped a Facebook profile […]

Drag Performers Parody Video “That’s Not My Name”

Facebook Name Policy

I love the Ting Tings so this definitely caught my attention. The Legendary Children of Atlanta and Brigitte Bidet released a parody of a Ting Ting hit retitled “WTF Zuck” in response to the Facebook enforcement of the “real names policy.”  And there’s no such thing as too much parody in the world. Especially parody with […]

Why This Lesbian Won’t Leave Facebook

Facebook Name Policy

If you follow me on social media, you may have noticed that I’ve been investigating/poking around the Facebook names policy crackdown – it hit my radar after two Pittsburgh drag performers mentioned being caught up in the thick of it. I smelled a conspiracy and it turns out I was a bit right. As it […]

Facebook, Queer Folks and What’s In a Real Name

Facebook has recently been enforcing their “real/legal names” policy, resulting in a disproportionate number of members of the LGBTQ community being forced to change the name displayed on their Facebook profile. This includes a significant number of drag performers and members of the drag community. Facebook policy around names: Facebook is a community where people […]

This Is Why I Use the Facebook Check-In Tool And You Should Too

Facebook Check-In

I recently saw a disgruntled status update from a Facebook friend announcing that he wanted to “block check-ins” because he didn’t bloody care where we are spending our time. I get that. Facebook is filled with all sorts of frivolous and irritating information about our friends, things we don’t have a need to know. But […]

I Might Have Reported You on Facebook, But They’ll Never Tell

Facebook has some nifty privacy and community safety tools that are far from perfect, but do let all of us play a role in keeping the online community safer. There are many things you can do to “protect” yourself from having to see content that you don’t like – you can unfollow someone but remain […]

Do Pgh Memes Inherently Have To Be Racist, Transphobic and Vicious?

Social Media Hate

This is why we can’t have nice things in Pittsburgh. Content Notes: lots of hate. And few allies calling it out. I pretty much think of any new “rah rah Pittsburgh” effort as a reflection on the #NextPgh concept. And this is not always good. There’s a new Facebook Page called “Pittsburgh Meme” that is […]