The entire journalism landscape faces an uncertain future, and queer media is no exception. In fact, queer publications – with smaller budgets and readerships and a scarlet “DEI” placed on them by the current administration – are struggling even more, according to a June report from The Progressive.
Amid layoffs, cutbacks, and mergers across the queer media industry, the report emphasizes that understanding the history of LGBTQ+ publications and how they survived is critical to keeping them alive today.
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As veteran LGBTQ+ reporter Tracy Gilchrist put it, “The state of it is in our hands. The more organizations, gatekeepers, and people with big money try to silence us or keep us at bay, the more we have to talk, and the louder we have to be. We have to be scrappy.”
Diane Anderson-Minshall – the first female CEO of what was then Pride Media and is now Equalpride – agreed. As companies continue to pull back support from LGBTQ+ outlets due to fear of retaliation by the current administration, Anderson-Minshall emphasized the need to innovate and for queer publications to do what they have always done: provide something to LGBTQ+ readers that mainstream media can’t.
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She cites, for example, The Advocate launching in the 1960s to cover police raids on gay bars, and the rise of fashion/celebrity magazines in the 1990s. She said these were all stories people “had wanted and were missing seeing themselves in mainstream media… that were validating and empowering for us.”
Gilchrist, who has launched her own podcast, spoke about the importance of immersing herself in the new media landscape, where podcasts and other independent projects are becoming trusted news sources, especially for young people intent on building their own brands rather than tethering themselves to a single publication.
“There’s a lot of independent people that I think younger queers are going to and trusting 1792343516 that maybe established LGBTQ+ media isn’t revered as much as it used to be,” Gilchrist posited. “That’s just been a learning curve for me because I dedicated a lot of time to those brands. I want them to thrive, but at this point, I’m really excited about independent people.”
At the same time, The Progressive emphasized the decades-long endurance of queer publications, reminding us that “looking back at the history and challenges LGBTQ+ publications have always faced reveals how queer media have persisted and found new ways to reach readers in different media landscapes.”
As Gilchrist said, it takes being “scrappy,” and the queer community has long proven it is.
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