Eric, 35, is a Gay Man Who Has Learned to Live With Microaggressions #AMPLIFY

Name: Eric Age: 35 County of Residence: Allegheny Pronouns: He/Him How do you describe your identity? Gay Please describe your coming out experience. Where did you find support? What challenges did you face? Many. I was raised in a small town in Ohio. Most people come from a Christian background and not a particularly liberal one. I was lucky enough […]

We Asked #AMPLIFY Contributors About Their Favorite Characters

LGBTQ characters AMPLIFY

We are pulling out some of the responses to the AMPLIFY survey for a closer examination. These are open-ended questions and people take liberties with their interpretation. What I did here was use a word cloud program that eliminates common words like ‘the’ and generates word size in proportion to frequency. So the largest words […]

John, 38, Is a Johnstown Based LGBTQ Activist #AMPLIFY

Johnstown Gay

John has the distinction of being the 100th person profiled in this series since May 2015. Thank you, John. Name: John DeBartola Age: 38 County of Residence: I hail from New Jersey. I lived in Susquehanna County, PA when I was finishing high school. I have lived in Cambria County, PA and the surrounding area since 1995. Preferred […]

Mark, 29, Talks About Gay Stereotypes in Pittsburgh

Name: Mark Age: 29 County of Residence: Allegheny Preferred Pronouns: He How do you describe your identity? Male Please describe your coming out experience. Where did you find support? What challenges did you face? When I was 18 to one of my close friends. She had actually been under the impression that I was “100% hetero” and I had to set […]