AMPLIFY! Joy KMT Values Intersectional Healing Spaces for LGBTQIA Communities

Joy KMT

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 mostly avoid editing their responses. The questions, however, may change as we ask each participant to tell us what we’ve missed […]

Joy KMT Speech at 2014 Pittsburgh Dyke Trans March

Joy KMT

(Published with permission from Joy KMT a featured speaker at the Pittsburgh Dyke Trans March. This may not be reprinted in any form without the explicit permission of Joy KMT.) Yesterday when I was coming back to Pittsburgh I cried. My girl asked me what was wrong, I said I didn’t want to be here. […]

Celebrate National Coming Out Day By Reading These 318 Stories

National Coming Out Day

On this National Coming Out Day, it is important to remember that coming out is not a one and done experience – we “come out” every time we meet someone new who has been taught to assume everyone is heterosexual and cisgender. And sometimes we don’t come out because it is not safe. We might […]

Here are 100 Lesbian Blog Posts on International Lesbian Day

International Lesbian Day

Lesbians get two awareness days – Lesbian Visibility Day on April 26 and International Lesbian Day on October 8. Obviously today is October 8. I don’t have many great lesbian thoughts to create an essay to pay tribute to lesbians. Instead, I compiled a list of 100 blog posts written since 2005 about lesbians. Interviews, […]

This Blog Celebrates Our Sweet Sixteen Today

Most blogs are abandoned within 90 days. Those that endure typically last 2-3 years. That works out to my blog being 5-8 “generations” removed from the blogs someone launches as a New Years resolution in 2022. I don’t remember celebrating my actual sweet 16, but it was certainly not like the movies. I was all […]

Guess what I did in 2021? New Nonprofit established to serve Pittsburgh LGBTQ community (with Rick Santorum tie-in)

Rick Santorum internship

Nonprofit established to serve Pittsburgh LGBTQ community Contact: Sue Kerr folx@pghlgbtq.org 412-216-3535   PITTSBURGH – A new non-profit organization has been established to address needs in the regional LGBTQ community. Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities (PLC)‘s mission is to raise community awareness and promote grassroots engagement for neighborhood quality of life, animal welfare, anti-poverty, and LGBTQ+ issues […]

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 […]

The Criminal Complaint Against Gary Van Horn Illustrates (Again) Divides in Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ Community

The local LGBTQ community is abuzz with the revelation that Delta Foundation President Gary Van Horn has started a Pittsburgh chapter of the Rosco P Coltrane fan club and “unofficially” brought Allegheny County Sheriff Mullen, a few notaries, and his friend “Timmy” along with him. (see images below to interpret that allusion.) Gary has been […]

We #AMPLIFY Stories from 50+ LGBTQ Parents in Western Pennsylvania on #LGBTQFamiliesDay

Welcome to another year of LGBTQ Families Day, a ‘day of blogging (and more)’ about LGBTQ families, sponsored by the blog Mombian and the Family Equality Council. Once again, I’ve decided to share #AMPLIFY posts highlighting the voices of parents, step-parents  and grandparents and other caretakers of children.  If you are a LGBTQ person with ties […]