Happy 2008!

Happy New Year to all of our activists, readers, and supporters. QueerToday is here to stay, so bookmark us and subscribe to us. Want to be even better connected to our group? Join us on facebook!

QueerToday mentioned in InNewsWeekly Year in Review...

"The Bay State this year marked the 20th Anniversary of the founding of the first Gay-Straight Alliance in the commonwealth at Brookline High School in 1987. Since then, 3,577 GSAs have registered with the Boston-based Gay Straight Education Network, at least one from every state, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Massachusetts ranks third in the nation with 242 GSAs. The Impendent Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, formed in 2006 after Gov. Romney's attempted pre-pride disbanding of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, began working in January.

Still, the issue of GLBT Youth remained very much in the news, in large part because of the controversy generated by anti-gay-rights group Mass Resistance. In November, the Queer Today blog reported the group co-founder Amy Contrda's 17-year-old daughter Claudia was a lesbian. The younger Contrada had held a star role in the Action-Boxborough high school's controversial production of "The Laramie Project." MassResistance later said that as a result of all of this, Claudia Contrada's parents were forced to withdraw her from school....


...But the Boston Pride Committee disagreed. Gays in the military, the importance of gays in the military living out lives, the importance of service in general, was demonstrated in its theme: "Ask. Tell. Proud to Serve Our Community, Our Country, Our World." The theme was not without its detractors, however. In May, a coalition was announced to protests the theme, which, members wrote in an email "feeds into the nationalistic pro-war culture [of] corporate America that still controls U.S. foreign policy and impacts our lives here in Boston, draining resources that we so desperately need." Still, despite a double flag-raising (one, the regular rainbow-colored flag; the other, a pink flag, raised by those opposing the Pride theme), Pride Week came, saw more people in attendance than in previous years, and passed..."

2007 was another amazing year for QueerToday. We succeeded in drawing attention to the most pressing issues facing the LGBTQIP... community today. We sparked outrage about the theme chosen for Boston Pride which turned into a broad coalition of human rights and social justice groups, the Ask Tell Act Coalition. The coalition went on to make a huge splash at pride, forming the largest contingent and encouraging hundreds of people to wear pink. This year we attended and promoted several anti-war protests, fought for One ENDA, spoke out against Shirly Q. Liqour, created a petition against MARS Inc. for their homophobic advertising, attended and supported Immigrant Rights Marches & Rallies, stood up loud and clear for Trans rights and the Mass Trans Political Coalition, and of course we provided timely insight and commentary on the latest issues facing the queer community and the world.

In 2008 we will continue to push for issues surrounding queer youth and gender identity/expression to be at the forefront of of everyone's attention through our unique style of blogging, protesting, and campaigning.

Interested in blogging for QueerToday in 2008? Contact us!