PA To Host 19 Events Honoring the Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR)

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Thursday, November 20 will be the 16th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR.) According to the Pennsylvania Student Equality Coalition: At least 19 organized vigils will be held in communities throughout the commonwealth for TDoR on November 20th, 2014. This is large increase from just a few events held in Pittsburgh and Southeastern Pennsylvania before […]

Artistic Q&A: The Blogging Craftmanship of David DeAngelo

David DeAngelo

As part my NaBloPoMo examination of art and blogging, I asked a few folks to consider some of the same questions I’m pondering. Today, we’ll talk with David DeAngelo from the blog 2 Political Junkies.   I met David in early 2006 soon after I began blogging. Our blogging lives brought us to many of […]

A Blogger, An Artist and an Advocate Walk Into a Bar

Podcamp Pittsburgh

This weekend, I’ll be doing something rather cool (again) – presenting at Podcamp Pittsburgh 9 along with my friends and collaborators, Nina Sauer of Most Wanted Fine Art  and Erin Gill Ninehouser of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network (PHAN).    The theme of this year’s Podcamp is “Ignite” PodCamp Pittsburgh is a social, new media […]

Post-Gazette Erases Trans Community & Worse in Article About Homeless Youth

GLAAD media guide

Score another one for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s inaccurate and unfair coverage of the LGBTQ community. This time, reporter Mary Neiderberger is at bat. She recently wrote a piece about homeless youth in Allegheny County using somewhat accurate and fair language about the impact of sexual orientation and gender identity on the number of youth on […]

Nashville Trans Woman Gizzy Fowler Found Murdered

Gizzy Fowler

Wednesday, a 24-year-old transwoman of color from Nashville was found murdered in Bordeaux, TN – a suburb of Nashville. Her name was Gizzy Fowler. Police are still investigating the motive in the shooting death. Fowler was found laying next to an open-door car in a driveway at a house of a homeowner that recently passed […]

Pittsburgh Municipal Equality Index Score Increases for 2014

Municipal Equality Index

The 2014 HRC Municipal Equality Index has been released. Pittsburgh residents have gained significant benefit from the 2014 court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania, but has only made slight actual gains in terms of municipal initiated efforts to address equality. Pittsburgh’s most noticeable ongoing weakness is evident in the “gender identity” indicators. The scoring […]

Ohio Trans Woman Brutally Attacked By Three Men

Candice Milligan

  Earlier in the week, Candice Rose Milligan, a 33-year-old trans activist in Toledo Ohio, was assaulted by three men around 3 PM. Yes, 3 in the afternoon. From NBC24.com According to a police report, Milligan was walking home Monday afternoon when she was approached by three men shouting homophobic slurs. Witnesses say Milligan was […]

Teaira Whitehead, the Brothers Karamazov and Blogging Defiantly

There’s a passage in the acclaimed novel The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky that has resonated and haunted me for decades. I read the novel in a graduate seminar on political philosophy in 1993. My reaction to this passage fundamentally shifted the way that I viewed God and my own calling, moving away from academia […]

The Reasons I’m Just a Blogger

Live Blogging

The NaBloPoMo prompt for today is a good theme to consider “Do you consider yourself a “professional” blogger? Why or why not? What does that mean to you?” In short, no. I am just a blogger, not a professional. After nine years, I’m not an amateur either. I’m just a regular, plain old blogger. The […]

How Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vanessa German Taught Me About Art

What is art? While growing up in Pittsburgh during the 1970’s and 1980’s, art was seemingly far removed from my everyday life. No one in my family or immediate circle was an artist (that I know of, at least) and we didn’t actively participate in the arts community. Art seemed like something for rich people. […]