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Q Archives

The Q Archives are an archive of LGBTQ Pittsburgh history, including publications, events, photos, and oral histories.

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The Q Archives has a nearly complete collection of LGBTQ publications ever published in the Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania region.

Pittsburgh Gay News

1973-1976

The Pittsburgh Gay News (PGN) was the first publication for the Pittsburgh area LGBTQ community, published by Gay Alternatives Pittsburgh (GAP). The first issue, then called the GAP Newsletter, appeared in March 1973 and had a circulation of several hundred copies. By March 1974, it had evolved into a “viable, professional publication” with a circulation of over 4,000. By July 1974, its circulation reached 7,000 copies.


By 1975, the Pittsburgh Gay News was its own seperate business and had expanded to Ohio with the Ohio East Gay News, Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Gay News, and Atlantic City with Philadelphia Gay News: Atlantic City Edition.


The Pittsburgh Gay News would cease operation in September 1976. The publisher would launch a new successor publication called Gay Life Pittsburgh in February 1977.

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Gay Life Pittsburgh

1977-1979

Gay Life Pittsburgh was a bold and boundary-pushing publication that served as a vital lifeline for the gay community in Pittsburgh throughout the 1970s. It was a connective tissue linking queer individuals across Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, and West Virginia, offering both celebration and critical visibility. The magazine documented queer joy in all its forms, from disco nights and happy hour haunts to the glittery glory of pageants like Miss Pittsburgh 1977 and Mr. Buns Pittsburgh. It balanced the festive with the functional, offering classifieds, job listings, personal ads, and even local business directories. 


The magazine stood in solidarity with national movements, as seen in its September 1977 “Open Letter to Our Friends of the Gay Community,” responding to the homophobic backlash in Dade County, Florida, and pledging support for equal rights legislation. 

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Pittsburgh’s Out

1979-2012

Pittsburgh’s Out was a long-running LGBTQ+ publication that served as a vital source of information, advocacy, and community connection from 1979 until 2012. Initially launched as Out, it evolved through various formats and editorial shifts over three decades, becoming a cornerstone of queer media in Western Pennsylvania. With coverage spanning local politics, HIV/AIDS advocacy, civil rights battles, nightlife, arts, and personal ads, Out provided a lifeline for LGBTQ+ readers in a time when mainstream media largely ignored or misrepresented queer lives. It stood as one of the few consistent outlets amplifying LGBTQ+ voices, especially during the height of the AIDS crisis and the fight for marriage equality.


In addition to its journalistic presence, Pittsburgh’s Out cultivated a sense of place and pride for queer Pittsburghers, often spotlighting local activists, organizations, and events that would otherwise have gone undocumented. It featured everything from heartfelt op-eds and call-to-action editorials to joyful social coverage that celebrated queer existence in all its complexity. Though it ceased publication in 2012, its impact resonates in the city’s current queer media landscape, laying the groundwork for successors like QBurgh and preserving an invaluable chronicle of queer Pittsburgh from the late 20th century into the early 21st.

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Equal Magazine

2012-2014

Equal Magazine was a glossy publication launched in November 2012 by the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh. Designed to spotlight queer life in Western Pennsylvania, the magazine featured stories on fashion, entertainment, nightlife, health, and advocacy, blending a celebratory tone with community-focused content. With a sleek visual aesthetic and upbeat editorial style, Equal positioned itself as a modern voice for LGBTQ+ Pittsburghers, aiming to elevate visibility and provide a platform for both local and national queer culture. It served as both a cultural touchpoint and promotional tool for the Delta Foundation’s events, especially the popular Pittsburgh Pride celebrations.

 

Despite its polished presence, Equal Magazine was also seen by some as emblematic of the Delta Foundation’s controversial approach to LGBTQ+ community building: prioritizing assimilationist, corporate-friendly narratives over grassroots or intersectional representation. The publication ceased in November 2014, marking a relatively short chapter in Pittsburgh’s queer media landscape. Its legacy remains complicated, tied closely to the broader critiques of the Delta Foundation’s leadership and its disconnect from the city’s more radical or marginalized queer voices. 

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Pride Magazines

2008-2019

From 2008 to 2019, the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh produced the Pittsburgh Pride Guide (also known as Pittsburgh Pride Mag), an annual glossy publication that coincided with Pittsburgh’s main Pride festivities. Designed to promote the Delta Foundation’s version of Pride, the magazine often featured celebrity interviews, event schedules, advertisements from corporate sponsors, and limited local LGBTQ+ coverage. It aimed to brand Pride as a large-scale entertainment spectacle through mainstream appeal. While it captured the growing corporate embrace of Pride, critics often noted its lack of representation for Black, trans, and working-class queer communities in Pittsburgh, raising questions about whose stories were being prioritized in the glossy pages.


The Pittsburgh Pride Mag played a complicated role in the city’s queer cultural memory. On one hand, it served as a visual archive of how the city’s Pride events grew and shifted in the late 2000s and 2010s, reflecting a broader national trend of corporate-backed Pride celebrations. On the other, it often excluded grassroots organizations, queer artists, and radical political voices that challenged the Delta Foundation’s control over Pittsburgh Pride. The Pride Guide has become a relic of a particular era, one that many now view with a mix of nostalgia, critique, and a desire for more inclusive, community-driven storytelling.

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QBurgh

2020-Present

 

QBurgh is a digital-first queer media outlet based in Pittsburgh, launched in 2020 with the mission of providing timely, community-centered news and features that reflect the vibrant and diverse LGBTQ+ experiences in the region. QBurgh stepped in to fill the void left by the closure of previous queer publications, embracing a modern, multimedia approach to storytelling. With an emphasis on accessibility and intersectionality, the platform covers a wide range of topics from politics and public health to arts, nightlife, and mutual aid, offering both original reporting and curated coverage of events shaping queer life in Pittsburgh and beyond.

 

Rooted in a legacy of queer resistance and visibility, QBurgh also plays a vital role in documenting local queer history while uplifting present-day voices. It functions not only as a news source but as a cultural hub that archives community milestones, celebrates queer joy, and advocates for equity and justice across identities. QBurgh remains a bold, affirming, and sex-positive voice within Pittsburgh’s media landscape.

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Coming soon: GLCC monthly newsletters, QueerBurgher.
Known missing publications: Cue Pittsburgh Magazine, Get Out Pittsburgh, Planet Q/Queer newspaper.

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Explore an issue

Gay Life Pittsburgh #12 February 1978

Pittsburgh Gay News #13 September 1974

Equal Magazine September 2013

Pittsburgh Pride Magazine 2014

Gay Life Pittsburgh #1 February 1977

Pittsburgh Gay News #12 July 1974
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galleries

Photograph archive scan progress
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Photograph archive gallery creation progress
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Heaven

Pride Parade 2011

Jackson’s

Splash 2010

Pride Advocacy Rally 2011

Crossover
All galleries

Video

2016 Pittsburgh Pride Parade and Pride in the Street with Kesha

Spotlight

coming soon

A Rose Wilting is Still a Rose
all spotlights

Histories by QBurgh

Pittsburgh is Burning

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Pittsburgh’s First Out Candidate

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The Legacy Lives in the Frame: Preserving Wendi Miller’s Radical Trans History in Pittsburgh

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about the q archive

Pittsburgh’s Queer History, Digitized and Alive

The Q Archives is a living, breathing digital portal to Pittsburgh’s rich LGBTQ history, finally available to the public, any time, anywhere. This groundbreaking project, a preservation initiative by QBurgh, brings decades of queer publications and photographs out of storage and onto your screen, where they belong.


Right now, visitors can explore a growing collection of iconic LGBTQ newspapers and magazines dating back to the early 1970s. These include Pittsburgh Gay News (1973), Gay Life Pittsburgh (1977), and Pittsburgh’s Out (1979–2012), thanks to the generous donation of over 500 issues from Tony and Ed Molnar-Strejcek. What was once locked away in 30 boxes and tubs is becoming a dynamic, searchable archive for researchers, community members, and anyone who craves connection to Pittsburgh’s queer roots.

 

The Q Archives are packed with vivid, powerful photographs from landmark moments in LGBTQ Pittsburgh history. From the March on Washington and the earliest Pride celebrations, to legendary venues like Pegasus, Auntie Mame’s, and the Holiday, the archive also showcases pageants like Mr. Buns and Mr. Pittsburgh Leather, the Steel City Softball League, and snapshots of drag royalty, grassroots organizing, and chosen family in full bloom.

 

The Q Archives lives on the QBurgh website as an open, user-friendly portal. You don’t need academic credentials or insider access to explore it. You just need Wi-Fi and curiosity.

 

Our GoFundMe campaign is live and raising funds for equipment, web development, climate-controlled storage, and the human labor it takes to scan, label, and honor each piece with the care it deserves.

 

When fully digitized, the Q Archives will be the most comprehensive, accessible exhibition of Pittsburgh’s queer history available online. Every contribution helps us bring our past into the present and make sure it’s never forgotten again.

Total project progress
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next steps

–  Continue assembling ‘Pittsburgh Gay News’ scans.
–  Continue scanning ‘Pittsburgh’s Out’ issues.
– Continue scanning photographs and assembling galleries.
–  Begin integrating individual articles into Q Archives.
–  Collect donations of missing issues and publications.

The Q Archives are made possible by the kind contributions of the community.

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lgbtq history of
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QBurgh is your source for LGBTQ news and community resources in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. info@qburgh.com

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