It’s officially Spooky Season, and if Halloween is your queer holiday of choice, you’ll be thrilled to learn that Cassandra Peterson, the queer actor who’s been playing the sexy comedy witch Elvira for well over 40 years, has a new gig heading into the horror-friendly month of October. “R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead 2,” from the mind of the celebrated YA horror author and based on his book “The Haunting Hour,” involves young people battling a new Pumpkinhead curse.

A blackface performance at Blue Moon Bar’s weekly Open Stage Wednesday has sparked anger, grief, and calls for accountability across Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ community, with Black performers asking not only how it happened, but what will change now that it has. The performance, which took place last week at the Lawrenceville LGBTQ bar, circulated through photos and community posts before Blue Moon Bar issued a public apology from management.

Stop telling trans people they have to vote for anti-trans Democrats. Stop telling them they’ll be responsible for the fall of democracy unless they do. I’ve been thinking a lot about s…

For nine days this October, Pittsburgh is getting a whole lot queerer at the movies. Reel Q returns for its 41st season October 2 to 10, expanding across Pittsburgh with screenings at seven venues …

Mom always said to tell the truth. One lie leads to another and another and you have to remember them all until pretty soon, you’re caught. Fibs are hard, mistruths are messy, even little white social lies can destroy trust. Worst of all, as in the new novel, “The Lost Brontë” by Catherine Friend, a complicated lie can lead to danger.

It's been a long time since I thought about Lauren Boebert. I think the last time she was on my radar was when she was giving Beetlejuice handies to some guy and then crying that she was acting out while going through a divorce and "simply fell short" of the values she's happy to legislate for everybody else. But now she's on my radar for adamantly not being "a lesbian or bisexual."

At this point, performing on a national stage is second nature to Adam Lambert, who shot to fame 17 years ago during the eighth season of “American Idol” in 2009. Just six months later, Lambert wen…

Central Outreach Wellness Center has opened a new hepatitis C treatment center on Pittsburgh’s North Side, bringing hepatitis C care, sexual health services, harm reduction, and recovery support together at one location. The new HepCMyWay Center of Excellence is located at 925 Brighton Road and offers hepatitis C testing and treatment alongside HIV and STI testing, PrEP, HIV care, naloxone and overdose prevention education, healthcare navigation, and referrals to substance-use disorder treatment and recovery services, according to Central Outreach.

advertisement Listen on Spotify 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?

LGBTQ+ adults are more likely than other adults to miss healthcare appointments due to cost or other reasons — with a third reporting their health worsened as a result, according to a new survey by…

We know him as Kumar in the “Harold & Kumar” movies, but Kal Penn has spent the past two decades happily refusing to stay in one lane: He left acting for a stint in the Obama administration, returned to Hollywood and, in 2021, wrote “You Can’t Be Serious,” a memoir that many assumed was partly his coming-out story. Now, in his new film, “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor,” he plays Dr.

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Sometimes, finding your people starts with a place to hang out, study, or make a bracelet. QBurgh’s Kalliyan Winder visited the University of Pittsburgh’s Rainbow Alliance to learn how the LGBTQ+ s…

This story was originally reported by Orion Rummler of The 19th. Penny Gautreaux has spent her career helping people in crisis. But facing her own took a village. A licensed social worker and therapist, Gautreaux struggled with an eating disorder for 24 years. As a transgender woman, dysphoria tied to her gender made it worse. She was hospitalized twice for being undernourished.

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Find A Resource That's Close To You. AIDS Free Pittsburgh is financially supported by the Allegheny Singer Research Institute (AHN), UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, and is managed by the Jewish…

Local activist Kits Blanc, the Endo King and QMNTY Center’s Spark King, is waging a battle against endometriosis as an Endo Warrior. The trans man is fighting against a disease that is most often, …

In 1990, Ian Charleson was the highest-profile British actor to die of AIDS and the first to publicly state that AIDS was his cause of death. Before that, he was one of the most acclaimed stage and film actors of the 1970s and ’80s, starring in the Oscar-winning films “Chariots of Fire” and “Gandhi,” and his now-legendary final stage role in “Hamlet,” weeks before his death, has become British theater lore.

Today, a person living with HIV will have the same lifespan as someone without the virus if they start treatment early enough and stay on it. Yet pernicious myths hold sway about who HIV affects an…

In journalism, we’re taught never to bury the lede. So here’s the lede: The LGBTQ+ community could be an important part of what happens in November’s midterm elections. We keep hearing predictions of a possible Democratic wave that could change control of Congress and, if that happens, place a congressional check on President Donald Trump. But anyone who has been around politics for more than five minutes knows the old saying: a week is a lifetime in politics.

You try, and you try. Once, twice, you go back at that thorny issue, the dream you have, the punchline that’s not hitting quite right. Sometimes, time is all you need to make it better, or a new ap…

U=U. Those three characters stand for “undetectable equals untransmittable,” and when it comes to HIV, it's a modern miracle. If you live with HIV and take your medication, you can achieve an undetectable viral load. When that happens, you are safe from transmitting the virus through sex. At Allies for Health + Wellbeing, U=U is the goal that staff hope to help patients and clients living with HIV achieve.

Stop telling trans people they have to vote for anti-trans Democrats. Stop telling them they'll be responsible for the fall of democracy unless they do. I've been thinking a lot about something @nome.bsky.social posted to Bluesky on Sept. 15: "I do not understand the folks furious at trans people for responding in anguish when the party that they've been told would protect them treats their existence as negotiable," he wrote.

This story was originally reported by Amanda Becker of The 19th. How many women does your employer have in management positions compared to industry peers? Are a retail chain’s Black workers as lik…

For nine days this October, Pittsburgh is getting a whole lot queerer at the movies. Reel Q returns for its 41st season October 2 to 10, expanding across Pittsburgh with screenings at seven venues and a lineup stretching from lesbian romance in the mountains of Greece to queer truck-stop desire, trans and nonbinary coming-of-age stories, horror, documentary, and a midnight trip back to…

Disability Pride Pittsburgh is coming to Schenley Plaza to celebrate community, joy, andaccess. This year’s theme is “We Belong Here and We’re Here to Stay.” Now in its fifth year, the event centers people with disabilities and all their intersectingidentities. “LGBTQIA+ community members belong at Disability Pride Pittsburgh because ouridentities are connected,” says Disability Pride Pennsylvania Executive Director Vicki…

You loved them in the ’90s — or you weren’t born in the ’90s but you still love them because you’re queer and it’s the law — and now Romy and Michele are set to return. In 1997, “Romy & Michele…

advertisement Listen on Spotify Sometimes we talk about queer joy like it's something you have to go looking for. Book the trip. Buy the ticket. Find the gay bar. Wait for Pride Month to roll around again. But this week's Slay Weekly has us thinking about all the queer joy that's already right here. Closer than we think. It's on Brookline Boulevard, where neighborhood businesses hung Pride flags and basically said, …

From the Brinton Road Overpass, Lucinda Beattie has only a few seconds to reach each driver passing below. So the message has to be big. Once a week, Beattie and a small group stand above the …

You try, and you try. Once, twice, you go back at that thorny issue, the dream you have, the punchline that’s not hitting quite right. Sometimes, time is all you need to make it better, or a new approach, or a second look. And then there are days when you actually get things right, as in “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay” by Eliot Glazer, …

The Steel City Softball League’s own Gracie Lou Freebushes proudly represented Pittsburgh at the International Pride Softball (iPride) Gay Softball World Series in Columbus, Ohio. This year’s tourn…

UPMC has reached a $950,000 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that will keep gender-affirming medical care unavailable to young transgender patients across the Pittsburgh health system. The Justice Department announced the agreement Friday, September 18, saying it resolves a federal investigation into UPMC’s provision and billing of gender-affirming healthcare. UPMC expressly denied wrongdoing or liability as part of the settlement.

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The Log Cabin Republicans is an absolutely worthless organization. Actually, they’re worse than worthless because they gleefully help to advance the Republican anti-queer agenda. So of course they’…

This story was originally reported by Amanda Becker of The 19th. How many women does your employer have in management positions compared to industry peers? Are a retail chain’s Black workers as likely to be in public-facing roles as its White workers? Did a trucking company hire qualified women at the same rate it hired qualified men? It will be much more difficult to answer these and other questions related to gender, race and ethnicity in workplaces once President Donald Trump’s U.S.

There’s been something troubling me for the last couple of years about what the Trump administration has been doing. It affects me personally, but I’ve mostly kept it in the back of my mind. After …

Sapphic September is a month-long celebration of sapphic representation in books. Here are a few gems to add to your reading list! Bury Our Bones In the Midnight Soil Toxic lesbian vampires! Say less! I first heard about this book because I like the show Arcane a normal amount, and I saw on TikTok that Katie Leung, the actress who voices Caitlyn Kiramman, was one of the narrators in the audiobook.

Here’s the thing nobody’s obituary is going to lead with, so I will: Dolly Parton picked up the phone for queer press. Not just the glossies with the biggest circulation — she talked to…

I was at a concert recently and a person next to me was wearing a cross-body bag that read, “Speak Up for Your LGBTQ+ Friends.” This person appeared to be your average straight white guy. The fact is, straight guys, even those who consider themselves to be allies, do not speak up for LGBTQ+ people often enough. There are a lot of straight guys who aren’t against LGBTQ+ rights, but it’s not “their fight” because it doesn’t directly affect them.

LGBTQ+ adults are more likely than other adults to miss healthcare appointments due to cost or other reasons — with a third reporting their health worsened as a result, according to a new survey by…

It’s always a pleasure to walk along Brookline Boulevard, and experiencing it festooned in Pride flags made it even more fun. The neighborhood’s inaugural Pride was on Saturday, September 13, and most of the open businesses, if not all, joined in. There were 16 “Pride Stops,” or local participating businesses, plus booths strung along Brookline Boulevard. The first stop was at Glass Under Fire, a vape shop that shared space with the official Pride booth and Allies for Health + Wellbeing, which also ran a mobile clinic offering free STI tests.

Sometimes, finding your people starts with a place to hang out, study, or make a bracelet. QBurgh’s Kalliyan Winder visited the University of Pittsburgh’s Rainbow Alliance to learn how the LGBTQ+ s…

You loved them in the ’90s — or you weren’t born in the ’90s but you still love them because you’re queer and it’s the law — and now Romy and Michele are set to return. In 1997, “Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion” saw Mira Sorvino (“American Crime Story”) and Lisa Kudrow (“The Comeback”) as two silly and supportive best friends turning the tables on the mean classmates who bullied them.

advertisement Listen on Spotify There’s something about September that feels like everybody is finding their places again. Students are settled back on campus. Fall leagues are underway. Calendars are filling up. The evenings arrive a little earlier, and summer already feels like something we were doing five minutes ago. And maybe that makes this a good week to think about…

Local activist Kits Blanc, the Endo King and QMNTY Center’s Spark King, is waging a battle against endometriosis as an Endo Warrior. The trans man is fighting against a disease that is most often, …

The 2026 annual Backyard Docs Film Festival, formerly known as the Rust Belt & Appalachia Documentary Film Festival, celebrates documentary films and filmmakers directly connected to our region. Backyard Docs Film Festival has become an annual celebration of non-fiction cinema. Hansen Bursic, the festival director, said. “The festival started in Nick Childers’ backyard as a chance to support local documentary filmmakers, develop relationships, and build community.