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Well, babes. September is packing its bags.
Somehow we’ve gone from sweating through Pride season to wondering whether it’s socially acceptable to put a decorative gourd on every available surface.
It is.
But the change of season has us thinking about something bigger than pumpkin-based interior design. Where do you feel like your whole self belongs?
Not the edited version of you. Not the version that knows which parts to make quieter, easier, or more acceptable. You. All of you.
This week’s Slay Weekly is full of people finding and creating those places.
Disabled and queer Pittsburghers gathering somewhere built with their whole selves in mind.
A gay man moving across Western Pennsylvania and realizing, after just three months in his new neighborhood, this is where I’ve always belonged.
And queer people filling movie theaters across Pittsburgh to watch our strange, sexy, romantic, complicated, sometimes terrifying lives flicker across the screen.
Maybe that’s one of the greatest things community can give us. A place where we don’t have to leave anything at the door.
Happy Monday, Pittsburgh.
You belong here. All of you. Let’s slay the week.
SLAY OF THE WEEK: Leave Nothing at the Door
There are plenty of events that say everyone is welcome. Disability Pride Pittsburgh goes a step further. It builds the welcome.
The fifth annual Disability Pride Pittsburgh returned to Schenley Plaza this weekend with the theme “We Belong Here and We’re Here to Stay.”
More than 50 vendors gathered alongside DJs, games, artists, resources, a sensory room, ASL interpretation for speakers, and interpreters available for conversations throughout the event.
But what especially caught our attention was how intentionally Disability Pride makes room for people whose identities don’t fit neatly into one box.
That includes LGBTQ+ disabled people.
Vicki Landers, executive director of Disability Pride Pennsylvania, put it beautifully: “None of us should have to leave part of ourselves at the door.”
Whew.
Because accessibility isn’t simply about getting somebody through the door. Belonging isn’t simply about letting somebody into the room. It’s about creating a room where people can actually show up fully.
Queer and disabled. Trans and disabled. Whatever combination of identities, experiences, bodies, needs, and fabulous weirdness makes somebody who they are.
Nobody should have to decide which parts of themselves are welcome before they arrive.
Disability Pride Pittsburgh isn’t asking people to shrink themselves to fit the space. It’s making the space bigger.
Now that’s a slay!
READER JOY: This Feels Like Home
Sometimes finding joy means making a really big change. This summer, Jeriamy did exactly that.
Jeriamy grew up in small towns outside Pittsburgh, first Ford City and then Apollo, where he owned a home and lived for 22 years.
Eventually, though, he realized something. He was ready for somewhere new.
He didn’t want the responsibility of maintaining a house anymore. He wanted to be closer to Pittsburgh. And, as a gay man, Apollo simply didn’t feel very him.
So in June, Jeriamy sold his house and moved to the Strip District. Three months later?
“This feels like where I’ve always belonged,” Jeriamy wrote to us.
He’s slowly getting to know his neighbors. He loves his building. He loves having a neighborhood he can walk through and being able to wander out his door for a great meal instead of driving half an hour.
But the best part isn’t the restaurants.
“Best of all, I feel I belong. I can be me,” Jeriamy shared.
Jeriamy, that’s the whole damn thing.
A home can be an investment. It can be four walls and a roof. It can be the place where you’ve lived for decades. But sometimes home is the place where you finally recognize yourself.
And Jeriamy ended his note to us with one more thing.
“I can’t wait to see what autumn has in store for me and my new home.”
Considering fall arrived approximately five minutes ago, we couldn’t think of a better Reader Joy for our last Monday in September.
Here’s to your first autumn at home, Jeriamy.
SHARE YOUR JOY: Tell Us Something Good
Okay, Pittsburgh. Your turn.
We know something good happened to somebody reading this.
Maybe it was big.
You got engaged. You came out. You landed the job. You celebrated an anniversary. You finally did the thing you’ve been talking yourself into doing for months.
Or maybe it was wonderfully, beautifully small.
Your crush texted back. Your dog did something cute. You found five dollars in an old jacket. A stranger complimented your outfit. You had dinner with somebody you love and laughed until your face hurt.
That’s the stuff we want.
Reader Joy isn’t about having the most impressive story.
It’s about noticing those little moments that make being alive feel pretty damn good and sharing some of that happiness with the rest of us.
So tell us something good. Send us your Reader Joy, big or small, and you might find yourself right here in next week’s Slay Weekly.
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Queer Joy, Delivered
While we’re talking about finding queer joy close to home, how about finding some literally at your front door?
Every month, we put together a new edition of the QBurgh newspaper filled with LGBTQ+ news, community, history, arts, culture, and plenty of queer Pittsburgh. Plus a crossword puzzle and a cartoon!
And you can have it mailed directly to you. No hunting down a copy. No discovering somebody grabbed the last one from your favorite pickup spot.
Just a fresh QBurgh showing up in your mailbox every month like a little bundle of gay newsprint saying, “Hey. You’re part of this community, too.“
And your subscription does more than deliver queer joy. It helps support QBurgh and the independent LGBTQ+ journalism we work hard to produce all year long.
So treat yourself. Support queer media. Get some queer joy delivered.
Subscribe to the QBurgh newspaper today.
Queer Joy in the World: Queer Pittsburgh Goes to the Movies
Clear your calendars and butter your popcorn. Pittsburgh is about to get extremely queer at the movies.
Reel Q returns for its 41st season October 2–10, and this year the Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ film festival is spreading across seven venues around the city.
And the lineup? Oh, honey.
Lesbian romance in the mountains of Greece.
Queer truck-stop desire.
Trans and nonbinary coming-of-age stories.
Black lesbian film history.
Drag.
Cruising.
Horror.
Messy exes.
Public queer sexuality.
A satanic ritual that goes spectacularly wrong.
And, because Pittsburgh apparently knows exactly what October needs, a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
We contain multitudes.
The films come from across the United States and around the world, giving Pittsburgh audiences a chance to see queer and trans lives that are romantic and historical, horny and heartbreaking, funny and frightening.
In other words, queer people get to be complicated.
And that’s something worth celebrating.
For generations, LGBTQ+ people have fought simply to appear on screen at all. So there’s something particularly joyful about a festival where we don’t have to be perfect representatives of anything.
We can fall in love. Have sex. Make terrible decisions. Search for ourselves. Encounter mythical bear caves. Summon demons.
You know. Normal queer stuff.
And there’s another kind of joy happening here, too. Because Reel Q isn’t only about seeing ourselves on a screen. It’s about seeing ourselves together.
For nine days, queer people will be sitting beside one another in theaters across Pittsburgh, laughing at the same jokes, squirming through the same awkward scenes, falling for the same characters, and occasionally wondering why anybody in a horror movie thought summoning Satan was a reasonable plan.
Forty-one seasons in, Reel Q is still giving Pittsburgh somewhere to gather and see just how enormous queer life can be.
We’ll save the full lineup for the QBurgh story. You bring the popcorn.
There’s a quote from Disability Pride Pittsburgh that we haven’t been able to shake:
“None of us should have to leave part of ourselves at the door.”
Imagine what Pittsburgh could look like if we carried that idea everywhere.
Into our neighborhoods. Into our workplaces. Into classrooms. Into theaters. Into friendships. Into queer spaces themselves.
Jeriamy found a neighborhood where he can walk out his front door and feel like himself.
Disabled LGBTQ+ Pittsburghers gathered this weekend in a space intentionally created so they could show up fully.
And later this week, theaters and auditoriums across the city are about to fill with queer people watching stories that remind us there isn’t one correct way to have a queer life.
That’s belonging.
Not simply being allowed somewhere. Being able to arrive as yourself.
September is ending. The leaves are starting to turn. We’re heading into that part of the year when the world outside gets a little darker and we start spending a little more time inside.
So maybe this week, notice the places where you don’t have to make yourself smaller.
And while you’re there, look around.
Who else could use a little more room to be themselves? Make some.
Because the best communities aren’t the ones where everybody fits the same mold. They’re the ones big enough to hold all of us.
Take care of each other out there, Pittsburgh. And wherever you’re headed this week, remember: You belong here. All of you.
We’ll see you in October.
Talk soon.
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