Despite the fact that our state’s Acting Secretary of Health and Physician General, Rachel Levine, is an openly trans woman who practiced gender care, it may seem almost impossible to find a queer-friendly, doctor in Pittsburgh who is knowledgeable about LGBTQIA+ ...
Are college campuses doing enough for their transgender students? According to The Healthy Minds Study, a national survey of over 14,000 students on campuses across the United States, 32.7 percent of transgender respondents thought about attempting suicide in 2013. In addition, ...
Despite varied stances on the American Military Industrial Complex within the LGBTQIA+ community, many experienced a thrill of outrage upon reading President Trump’s series of tweets on Wednesday July 26, 2017. Trump’s tweets stated his intention to ban transgender individuals from serving ...
Kids are gender-explorers, still developing their own sense of what gender is and how they want to express it. For queer kids, seeing and interacting with queer adult role models can give them confidence in themselves and who they are ...
In a move designed to distract and alienate, President Trump announced via tweet at 6 a.m. on July 26th that he would be instituting a ban on trans people serving in the United States Armed Forces. This would overturn a ...
Hey, queers! As promised, I’m back with something super special! It’s Part 2 of the Queer Pride Guide with 21 awesome events happening between Thursday, June 9th and Friday, June 16th! This week there are 21 unique events that are ...
When you hear the word “Pride,” many queer and trans people think of the official Pride March. For years in Pittsburgh that has meant the Pride Festival and Parade hosted by the Delta Foundation, and for years some Pittsburghers have ...
This here is just an overview to help you understand the language used by NB (non-binary) people who have less popular pronouns than ‘he’ and ‘she’. These non-he-and-she pronouns are commonly known as gender neutral pronouns, and are often used ...
For the 5th year in a row, the FIERCE! queer burlesque festival will celebrate sexy queer bodies through creative dance, featuring hot performers diverse in age, race, ethnicity, class, body type, access/ability, and gender expression. This year, the festival returns to ...
April 21, 2017 is the GLSEN Day Of Silence. For those of you who don’t know what the Day of Silence is, I’ll explain. GLSEN stands for the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. Their Day of Silence has been ...
Since 2010, Hot Metal Hardware (HMH) has been a staple of genderqueer entertainment in Pittsburgh, presenting all manner of drag and burlesque shows at locations around the city. Their upcoming event, GET BENT! A Night of Gender Fauxery, focuses on ‘gender mayhem’ ...
A little while ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Pastor Shanea Leonard of Judah Fellowship to discuss church hurt, intersectionality, community building outside the City, and everything that she’s been working on in and around Pittsburgh. The Judah Fellowship Christian Church is ...
I’ve spent the last seven years studying and practicing organizational psychology, a field that seeks to enhance the workplace from a people perspective. This might conjure up thoughts of Google nest pods, annoying surveys about your work attitudes, and measuring ...
“Burlesque is about feminism. Burlesque is about power. Burlesque is about women doing what they want and loving themselves.” What society thinks is sexy–who gets depicted as sexy, what sort of bodies are given that designation, is a thing that ...
Heya Sister 6P, Silicone or water-based? I can never decide. Thanks,Lou-b’d Dear Lou-b’d First of all.. A water-based sex toy may sound fun.. But the ice insertables do come with a risk. Meanwhile, the insert-into-able ice sex toys do help ...
Dear Costa,My girlfriend moved in with me and my dog, Apollo, about 9 months ago. She always got along with the dog but lately it seems she’s more interested in Apollo than she is with me. She never asks me ...
Heya Sister PPPPPP, Here’s an embarrassing fact–I’m terrible at talking about sex in any context. I find myself referring to sex as “doing IT” or “You Know What.” My partner has even started calling me out on it. I feel ...
Every summer, the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh organizes Pittsburgh’s Pride Festival and March downtown. The Delta Foundation recently announced in a press conference with the EQT Foundation, Mayor Peduto, and County Executive Rich Fitzgerald that this year’s festival and march ...
Community Health for Queer and Trans Folks Despite the passing of the Affordable Care Act that expanded healthcare access to millions of people, one in ten Americans under age 65 are still uninsured and over half of these individuals report ...
Music has the power to unite, and to heal. In these trying times, it can be an important component of self-care. The Renaissance City Choir (RCC) has brought music to the Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ community for decades. Founded in 1985, the choir ...
As the entire country counts down the days until the 2016 election season is over, it’s important to remember that local and state elections will matter just as much, if not more than the Presidential election, when it comes to ...
Chrissy Costa is a Pittsburgh-based stand up comedian, who has graced you with her virtual presence to answer all your lez-lady, queer-loving dating inquiries. Need some advice? Send your questions to DearCosta@queerpgh.com. Dear Costa,I have a crush on my boss… ...
Queer nostalgia: noun. \ˈkwir\ \nä-ˈstal-jə\. A longing for the sense of community created by past experiences of marginality. This spring, after hearing about some research funding available for undergraduates interested in archival research, I began exploring Pittsburgh’s gay newspapers of ...
There’s a local bar that I used to visit at least weekly. It was my LGBT establishment of choice for the great specials and location. During one of my visits there, I noticed they were hiring for a variety of ...
We need to take a moment and give a round of applause for the brave group of students who, with the help from Lambda Legal, are filing a discrimination lawsuit against the Pine-Richland School District in the North Hills. Juliet Evancho, Elissa ...
A few weeks ago I had my first ever Steel City Roller Derby experience at their 10th anniversary bout against Toronto. I’m someone that can get into just about any sport, so I obviously enjoyed watching dozens of badass women ...
It’s dark and loud…very loud. There are random flashes of lights, matching the pulsating beat. It’s crowded around me, packed to capacity. I stand very still while everyone else is moving. The music isn’t typically what I’d listen to, but ...
Recently I’ve had the opportunity to go through my boxes of memorabilia that I’ve collected over the years. Since I’ve been an activist on LGBT issues since 1969, and here in PA since 1971, it makes me one of the ...
At the GLCC, workers and volunteers have experience not only with daunting statistics connecting homelessness and poverty to the LGBT community, but also needs directly from the realities of visitors. Sue Kerr, social media manager at the center, recited numbers ...
At first, Terry Mutchler says she and state Senator Penny Severns kept their relationship a secret because Mutchler led the Associated Press statehouse bureau chief in Illinois. For a journalist to have a relationship with a source is a major ...
More than 300 people from Pride organizations all over the world will gather in Pittsburgh, but when they return to organize their local events, the reach of the 32nd Annual InterPride Conference set for Oct. 22 to 26 in Pittsburgh. ...
After making the decision to transition from male to female in 2009, Allie Gray, of the South Hills, says she made a grim promise to herself – one that she no longer plans to keep. “I told myself a few ...
The decision on May 20 by a federal judge to strike down Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage has changed the course for many LGBT couples across the state. For 19 couples who were the first to get married on June ...
Major Stephen Snyder-Hill serves his country proudly, but his country has not always served him. In September, 2011, then-Captain Hill was deployed to Iraq. He was fighting a war. Meanwhile in the United States, a group of Republican candidates were ...
Local musician C. J. Mitchell’s gay anthem “Permission 2 Love” is making a splash, literally and figuratively, all over Pittsburgh. Mitchell, 26, has been in music all of his life. He played drums when he was five. He was playing ...
Michael Cannon on “Camera: A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital” by Todd Gustavson
“I’m currently in the process of brushing up on my photo history. In today’s digital world, it’s great to step back and look at how far photography has come. Camera: A History of Photography from Daguerrotype to Digital is a ...
On the morning of May 20th, I, along with many friends anxiously awaited the ruling from the U.S. District Court in regard to the ban on marriage equality. When news broke that the ban was struck down we rushed to ...
As you’re planning your wedding, you’ve probably heard heard the phrase “but it’s tradition!” like a hundred times. While some wedding traditions will never go away, we think it’s time to break some of these silly long-standing wedding traditions. Here ...
Dearly Beloved, We are gathered here to celebrate another step together towards full equality. History is in the making as same sex couples across our area join together in marriage. Holy matrimony! We are delighted to share stories with you ...
Chelsea Zahn has learned about herself and her gender presentation just by discussing and supporting the process her roommate has gone through. “She’s a really authentic person, which I can really appreciate and understand,” Zahn says. When Zahn, 22, of ...
It’s a relaxing summer day at the pool. The sun is shining, the drinks are cold, a campy top 40 pop song is playing on the radio and life is nearly perfect. That is, until later in the evening when ...
“Into the Wild” is about living your life without any attachments to our materialistic world. Just being free and as close with god, nature, and yourself as much as possible. The character Christopher McCandless abandoned all belongings and set off ...
It has been an exciting year for advancements in LGBT rights. The Supreme Court struck down portions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor in June 2013, and with that, the floodgates seemed to have ...
Different cultures represent gendered restrooms differently, but the ubiquitous figures denoting men’s and women’s restrooms are, at least, problematic and at worst, dangerous for some gender nonconforming people. Incidents of transgendered people facing harassment in public places or disciplinary action ...
Europe is the world’s number one tourist destination and every year millions of gay people flood to our cities, beaches and countryside. London has some of the world’s best gay nightlife. Paris is one of the world’s most beautiful cities. ...
Robert “Lucky” Johns passed away peacefully on the morning of June 18th, 2014. He was born to Italian-American parents in Pittsburgh’s Northside in 1935, at which time his mother nicknamed him “Fortunato.” “I’ve been Lucky all my life,” he said. ...
Summer is synonymous with entertaining and for good reason. Warm summer days and long summer evenings make the perfect backdrop for gatherings with friends and family on the deck with some delicious cocktails. How do you take a simple picnic ...
Dear Friends: Welcome to the July issue of Equal Magazine. We kick off this month’s issue with an important cover story that affects every LGBT person living in Pennsylvania…discrimination in the orkplace. Yes, while history was just made last month ...
It has been a momentous year for marriage equality in our country. The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark June 2013 decisions overturning the Defense of Marriage Act and upholding the ruling on Proposition 8’s unconstitutionality opened the proverbial floodgates, ushering in ...
Pittsburgh is no stranger to cinema. From Night of the Living Dead to Mothman Prophecies and The Dark Knight Rises, Pittsburgh has a long history of movies being filmed here. And Pittsburghers love the silver screen back with a plethora ...