LQ Current Supporters

The End Result Projects – home renos, furniture, exterior, interior – Janet Weigelt 604-649-9121 (I’ve hired her for renos on my house, and she’s excellent. -editor)

LQ Past and In-Kind Supporters

• Gay and Lesbian Business Association of BC
• Honeysuckle Rose Cottage
• Jett Grrl Bike Studio
• Lesbian Luxury Adventure Vacation
• Sounds and Furies Productions

Tuesdays: Surrey Coffee Group 7PM @ Java Hut @ 64th Ave & 152
1st Wednesday of the Month: Vancouver Outdoor Club Monthly Meetings 7:30 pm, common room of the Sitka Women’s Housing Coop at 1550 Woodland St. Lesbian outdoor activities. Event planning, presentations, socializing & meeting new members. http://www.outdoorwomen.ca/

Wednesdays—Mildred Women’s Volleyball League Women’s volleyball league running from October to February. Games are played on Wed nights in Burnaby. Register in August. 604-684-9872 x2002

Last Thursday of the Month Valley Girls Dinner at Frogstone Grill in Maple Ridge Connect via yahoogroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/valleygrrls

Last Friday of the Month: Queer Women on the Drive 7-9 pm Seniors Lounge of Britannia Community Centre. All ages, including children if supervised by an adult. 604-684-5307

Friday Nights: Fruity Flick Fridays 103-1033 Davie St. for LGTB folks aged 45+. Free movie night hosted by the Centre’s Generations Project.

Some Saturdays—Women’s Dance @ Waldorf— dates vary so check http://flygirlproductions.com/ $5 B4-10 $10 after

Saturdays & Mondays—Not So Strictly Ballroom same-sex dance classes
http://www.gayvancouver.net/nssb

Saturdays—Country Dancing—quarterly hoe-down for same sex dancers who like country music. Get on the mailing list at cnwdance@telus.net

First 3 Sundays of the Month - W-Group – Social group for LBTQ women in the West End info at www.groups.yahoo.com/group/whangdoodle/

First Wednesday of every month – Vancouver Front Runners Women’s Run once a month Women’s Run. Meeting place is the lobby of the Roundhouse Community Centre at the corner of Davie and Pacific Boulevard at 6:30 p.m. http://www.vancouverfrontrunners.org/

The print copy was supported by advertizers and was distributed at Vancouver area queer locations, and at women’s dances in the Fraser Valley, Vancouver and Kelowna.  The stacks of papers left at coed queer settings such as the Centre and Little Sisters were vandalized on at least two occasions in these locations (ostensibly by persons who were anti-lesbian or mysogynist, rather than anti-queer, as neighbouring queer publications were untouched) by being reversed so that the title was not visible or hidden under stacks of papers.  Papers in the one straight location it was distributed in, CCEC credit union, were unaffected.

The print version was discontinued as of LQ 13 for reasons discussed in that issue.

When I go to write for LQ, all I have passion for is the scary stories. For example, the one about how I still am appalled at alleged child abuser Robin Sharpe being glorified repeatedly as a free speech hero in queer newspapers, when incest survivors are being silenced (by the same social machinery that supports him) every day.

Scarier yet, I imagine writing about the pink elephant in the living room of the feminist community in Vancouver; the ill-kept but not-public secret of why many feminist and community activists and leaders (including me) want nothing to do with a certain litigious and predatory women’s organization, but few will say it publicly.

However, I’m unlikely to write about those things soon. I’m older and busier now, and I write (among other things) for a living. I don’t have the energy to take on the thankless (or worse) task of fighting those battles publicly or to volunteer my time as much as I have been for LQ these last two years.

It’s hard to be fully out. Being out as a lesbian or even a feminist is relatively easy with practice. Being out as someone who has thought long and seriously about some of the issues and found she disagrees with the some of the most vocal received truths of her community is harder.

I understand that newspapers exist to sell ads. Newspapers whose major advertisers are porn producers exist to sell a certain kind of commodified sex, primarily to men, and I think that unfortunately shapes what realities are seen as valid. If that’s all we can read, it becomes ’the voice’ of our community.

In creating LQ, I wanted it to be a voice separate from the ‘post-modern libertarian’ queer community that has enough places to express itself. I wanted to celebrate lesbians, and women’s bravery, knowledge and strength, not the free speech of child-abusers. Do you have a passion for covering news and views about lesbians not covered in the queer press? Story angles that are perhaps unfashionable, but constructive for lesbians and women? Do you want to profile your local hera or women-focussed project? If you are interested in writing for LQ, send your work along or drop me a line. 400 words maximum, about lesbians and by lesbians (trans-inclusive). You don’t have to be ‘a writer’. The deadline is ‘as soon as possible, how about today?’ LQ needs regular contributors to keep going.

- Sophia Kelly

Pdf file for printing: LQ Colour Print Version