Honoring the Lives and Deaths of Our Trans Neighbors on TDOR 2018

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2018 Pittsburgh

The Transgender Day of Remembrance of 2018 has a new degree of poignancy to me because of the additional layers of transphobia that are on display and thread through the lives of our transgender neighbors. It is also the first year I’m blogging about a trans woman from Pittsburgh among those killed this past year. […]

Temporary Move to New Blog Digs (It Ain’t Going Smoothly)

Dear readers, We are in the process of migrating our 13 years of blog content to a new webhost. Unfortunately, my current webhost has locked my domain and is unresponsive to my inquiries. I have pursued the appropriate steps to take it back into my control, but it could take awhile – up to 60 […]

Four Reasons We Use a Q&A Format to Interview Artists & The Exception We Made for Emily Saliers

  We like Q&A’s. Read our archive here (and the AMPLIFY archive here.) Recently, more than a few of our potential interviewees just didn’t return their Q&A so we were not able to promote their event/performance/activity. They also didn’t benefit from the SEO and outgoing links and all that lovely Interwebs magic. And there’s a […]

Turahn Jenkins Plan to Reintroduce Himself, Has No Plan to Support LGBTQ Community

Turahn Jenkins LGBTQ

The man who thinks LGBTQ people are sinful by nature wants to reintroduce himself and his campaign for District Attorney per his interview with The Incline.  Turahn Jenkins has had ample time to demonstrate that he’s learned lessons from his engagement with the LGBTQ community, but he seems more focused on saying that he’s ‘not […]

Daryl Metcalfe Gay Bashes Dan Smith Jr’s Husband #Midterms2018

Daryl Metcalfe anti-LGBTQ

For almost 20 years, Daryl Metcalfe has been employed by the residents of the 12th State House District of Pennsylvania to represent them in the PA General Assembly. He has amassed quite an impressive record of obstructionist, racist hate and not so much a record of effectively working with his district leaders to address issues […]

Transgender and LGBQ Community Take Action at Allegheny County Jail; Met With Pittsburgh Police in Riot Gear

Allegheny County Jail Transgender

Thursday evening, dozens of activists gathered outside the Allegheny County Jail to address the poor treatment of transgender inmates, particularly transgender women. Brought together by SisTers Pgh and BlaQK OPS, protestors maintained a presence along Second Avenue. Police responded in riot gear. Of course they did. That same evening, the District Attorney was all over […]

Jodi Hirsh: “I started this fundraiser as a response to the terrible actions of the federal government. And people stepped up in a massive way.”

On October 21, 2018, a friend of mine named Jodi Hirsh decided to use the Facebook birthday fundraiser tool to resist the announcement by the Federal Government that they plan to roll back acknowledgements of gender identity. She chose the Transgender Law Center as the recipient. She wrote “I wasn’t going to do one of […]

Pittsburgh Public School Board Votes Unanimously to Disaffiliate with Pittsburgh Marathon Over Chick-fil-A Sponsorship

Tonight, the entire School Board voted unanimously in favor of a resolution that disavows the sponsorship role of Chick-fil-A in the Pittsburgh Marathon. This means no Pittsburgh public school will officially participate in marathon activities or the Kids of Steel year round programming. No employee can participate in an official capacity. And no one will […]

Vote ‘No’ on the Allegheny County Children’s Fund

Vote No Referendum

In addition to the various critical elections facing us on November 6, there is also a critical referendum item – the ‘Allegheny Children’s Fund’ referendum asking for a voluntary 5% property tax hike to pay for early learning, after-school programs and healthy meals for kids. I hope it goes without saying that I believe that […]

The extra bff

When I was a child, the other girls in my neighborhood were firmly cemented into best friend pairs – Amy & Julie, Laurie & Darlene, Sherry & Meg, etc. My role was to be a back-up friend. Sometimes, I was included in group activities. Sometimes, I was called upon if the BFF was unavailable. And […]