318 Coming Out Stories from Western Pennsylvania

National Coming Out Day Pittsburgh

Happy National Coming Out Day! Today is the day we celebrate coming out – being more open about our LGBTQIA+ identities AND encouraging folx still “in the closet” to take their own steps. Sharing our own unique stories is an essential tool to offer support. In honor of that reality, I am offering this list […]

316 Reasons to Add Your LGBTQ Story to the #AMPLIFY Archive

Since 2015, we have been collecting stories from LGBTQ folks with ties to Western Pennsylvania. Some live here now, others grew up in this region. Others still attended college or had a job that brought them here or spent summers with their grandparents in an outlying community. Here includes 26 counties in Western Pennsylvania, from […]

Rural PA LGBTQ&A with TransFamily NWPA and Erie Gay News from Erie, Pennsylvania

Rural organizing Erie County

This is part of a new occasional series exploring LGBTQ organizing in rural Pennsylvania communities. After our recent driving trip through the PA Wilds communities, I was impressed that after an almost complete lack of queer visibility, a slew of new LGBTQ projects unfolded in my feed – a Pride event in Elk County, a Pride parade […]

Rural PA LGBTQ&A with OutIndiana from Indiana County, Pennsylvania

This is part of a new occasional series exploring LGBTQ organizing in rural Pennsylvania communities. After our recent driving trip through the PA Wilds communities, I was impressed that after an almost complete lack of queer visibility, a slew of new LGBTQ projects unfolded in my feed – a Pride event in Elk County, a Pride parade […]

82 Trans Stories from Western Pennsylvania Honor Trans Awareness Week

Transgender Awareness Week

The week before Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20, we have Transgender Awareness Week to help raise the visibility of transgender people and address issues the community faces. I’ve curated 82 stories from our #AMPLIFY project to illustrate the multi-faceted experiences of transgender neighbors in Western Pennsylvania. Our project asks people to describe their […]

Worthington Man Behind Racist Messages Plans to Erect Two Additional Billboards in Armstrong County

Worthington Armstrong County racism

Last week, the Kittanning Leader Times ran a comprehensive article on the racist billboards posted along State Route 422 in Worthington Borough. The article is behind a paywall so if you’d like to read it, you will need to invest either $2.99 for a days access or $20 for a month. The reporter, Jon Andreassi, […]

‘Take your blog and get the hell out of our town’ – Some Folx from Worthington, Armstrong County Are Not Happy With Me

Dame Judi Dench

Content Note: racism, bigotry, rape culture Please click the links for the backstory. In mid-February, I posted about racist fear-mongering billboard content on an electronic billboard in Worthington Borough, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. Along with describing the billboards, I shared 11 suggestions for getting involved to resist this messaging. A few days later, the billboard’s lessee […]

White Supremacist Billboards in Armstrong County Refreshes Content with Worse Racist Hate

Worthington Armstrong County John Placek Racist Billboard

A few days ago, I wrote a post about billboard in Worthington Borough, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. It is an electronic billboard located on the property of the Worthington-West Franklin Volunteer Fire Dept, facing west at the intersection of 422 and Bear Street, which is an intersection with a traffic light. Yes, this hate is helping […]

White Supremacist Billboards Disturbing Residents in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania

Last week, some concerns were raised about an electronic billboard in the town of Worthington in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. The messaging is filled with uber-conservative, nasty messaging that is sowing fear in the residents who live in the community and those from neighboring communities who have to drive by on their daily routes. There are […]

11 Quotes from the #AMPLIFY LGBTQ Project in Honor of World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day takes place on the 1st December each year. It’s an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness. Founded in 1988, World AIDS Day was the first ever global health […]