Category: Advocacy

ActivismAdvocacyBlogiversary

Mayoral City of Pittsburgh Proclamation that Tuesday, December 29, 2020 is ‘Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents Day’ in Pittsburgh

December 8, 2020 by

  “Pittsburgh Celebrates 15 Successful Years of the LGBTQ Blog December Twenty-Ninth Two-Thousand & Twenty WHEREAS, Founded in 2005, the Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents blog is the longest running LGBTQ blog in Pennsylvania, shattering the average two-to-three year life span of most blogs; and, WHEREAS, After being started by local social worker and community organizer Sue […]

ActivismAdvocacyPride

About the Delta Foundation and Pittsburgh Pridefest 2020

August 25, 2020 by
Delta Foundation Pittsburgh Pride

By now, you have likely heard this news – the Delta Foundation is dissolving and a new coalition has emerged to pick up the Pride mantle moving forward. UPDATE –> there are now two coalitions planning Pride 2021 events. Plus, People’s Pride. I’ve been expecting this decision, really since 2015 when Roots Pride challenged us […]

AdvocacyPoliticsQ&A

Q&A with Matt Merriman-Preston about Voting by Mail in November’s Election

August 19, 2020 by

Earlier this year, I published two Q&A’s about the rapid changes to the Pennsylvania primary voting process, one with Kris Rust and one with Matt Merriman-Preston. In late July, I approached them about updating for the General Election. Then Trump swooped down on the United States Post Office and tried to break it. He literally […]

ActivismAdvocacyCivil DisobedienceHealthPoliticsRacial Justice

Video: First person view of Pittsburgh rally to reopen small business and support Trump

April 21, 2020 by

Lorenzo does outreach to people experiencing homelessness, neighbors who are incredibly overlooked right now. he’s been making excellent points that are not on our radar. Did you know street meals have been limited to 3 days a week? I’m appalled to realize I haven’t been thinking about this. Lorenzo went Downtown on Monday to continue […]

AdvocacyPoliticsQ&A

Q&A with Kris Rust About the PA Primary, Critical Elections, and Mail-In Ballots

April 1, 2020 by
Kris Rust

This is a very confusing time. We spend hours trying to find toilet paper and disinfectant, worrying about access to critical medications that are being redirected to maybe cure COVID-19, and having our evening news interrupted by a ridiculous puppet President who lies and misleads us every single fucking day. One point of confusion is […]

AdvocacyAMPLIFYTrans

84 Trans Stories from Western Pennsylvania on the Trans Day of Visibility

March 31, 2020 by
Transgender Awareness Week

March 31 is the International Transgender Day of Visibility, devoted to raising the visibility of transgender and gender nonconforming (GNC) neighbors both in terms of their resiliency and successes as well as the realities of transphobic bias and violence. I’ve curated 84 stories from our #AMPLIFY project to illustrate the multi-faceted experiences of transgender neighbors […]

AdvocacyPolitics

Q&A with Matt Merriman-Preston About the Pennsylvania Primary Election, Mail-In Ballots, and More

March 27, 2020 by

This is a very confusing time. We spend hours trying to find toilet paper and disinfectant, worrying about access to critical medications that are being redirected to maybe cure COVID-19, and having our evening news interrupted by a ridiculous puppet President who lies and misleads us every single fucking day. One point of confusion is […]

ActivismAdvocacyBusinessEconomy

Small Business Loans in Response to a Global Pandemic is not Relief

March 23, 2020 by

This piece was co-written by Shanon Williams & Christian J. Hughes, two small business owners COVID-19 has officially set in and the nation has been scrambling to establish various types of support from food to mental health and everything in between as we all hunker down and prepare to be in semi/full isolation for the […]

AdvocacyFaith and ReligionFoodother writings

Grand Jury Report on Predatory Priests should make you rethink Fish Fry Season

February 17, 2020 by
Fish Fry Friday Pittsburgh

I wrote this in March 2019. I skipped all the Lent fish fries last year, but am unsure what to do this year. Lent is arriving in Pittsburgh and that means fish fry season is upon us. A mainstay of Catholic culture in Pittsburgh, this is the first fish fry season since the release of […]

AdvocacyHealthPolitics

That Time When the Social Security Administration Took Away My Disability Benefits Without Telling Me Why: Part One

February 14, 2020 by
SSDI Benefits Stopped

A week ago Friday, I put the final touches on an essay for PublicSource and gave it my blessing to be published the following Monday. The topic was social security and I had a teeny twinge about triggering an unwarranted review by someone who sees all the words I create, but doesn’t read them enough […]