I can hardly believe that I’m writing these words, but this weekend will officially mark ONE WHOLE YEAR of Good Queer News!!! Part of me is shocked it’s already been a year. The other part of me just can't believe it took this long to get started. In many ways, this project has felt like a homecoming to my purpose on this earth.
SO… What better way to celebrate than by coming together LIVE (and recording it to send to you all later, too)!!!! Comment on this post to let me know what questions you’d like me to answer! They can be about the project, about recent headlines, about me as a person, the queer books I’m reading, or anything else.
Where We’re Going… and How You Can Help!
I know attention spans are limited, so while it might make more narrative sense to start with all my cute emo reflections, gratitude, and dreams, I want to kick this off with a little about where I'm hoping we go from here. I'm also going to be openly transparent about the help I need from you to get there!
It's no secret that I love to write, and it's also no secret that the publishing industry is a rough world for lots of people—especially queer and trans folks and authors writing from the margins. My dream in the next year is to write and publish a book on the role of joy in the queer liberation movement through history—and how we can and must use joy today to build a movement that lasts. In order to do that, I need to show a publisher I have platform. Translation: it's a numbers game. The number of engaged subscribers I can show here will directly translate to increased odds of finding the right home for this book.
I've set a very ambitious goal for myself to grow this newsletter to 20,000 people by the end of October, an increase of about 7,500 people. I genuinely believe that's possible, and plan to work my butt off to make that happen. Here's how you can help:
Tell people you know about this project. Share what it's meant to you, and what you think they might like about it.
Media collaborations are a fantastic way to raise the profile of this project. Interviews, podcasts, that sort of thing. Are you a journalist or podcaster? Do you have a friend or sibling that is? Maybe you're an influencer open to collaborating! Whoever you are or whoever you know, Let's talk!
Getting in front of crowds is an amazing way for me to have an impact, talk about hope, and reach new people. Do you have a workplace ERG, a PFLAG Chapter, a church equity group, a cool local bookstore, a nonprofit, or some other collection of people who might want to talk about hope, resilience, and change together? Whatever your group’s size or budget (including none!) Please reach out!
It's no secret that money is a part of the equation here. The more financially stable I am, the more time I can spend working on Good Queer News instead of doing marketing/outreach for fully paid events. I'm not just asking for your money though—I also plan to split it.
For the whole month of September, since it's both GQN's birth month and my actual birth month, I'm committing to donating half of all new subscriber revenue to PROMO Missouri. For those of you who aren't in MO, Missouri advocates are fighting against a ballot initiative to ban gender affirming care. This is the first time in the country that the right has tried a constitutional ban on GAC for youth. I cannot stress enough that Missouri is a testing ground for the alt-right—if this initiative works, they will bring it to dozens of other states across the country. If it dies, they're much less likely to try it again. Beating this in Missouri will protect ALL of us, and PROMO is leading the charge in protecting queer and trans folks in Missouri. It's an honor to use my platform to raise awareness and funds for their brilliance.
You can upgrade to a paid subscription here:
If you prefer, make a direct donation to PROMO instead here (and if you send me a screenshot, I’ll upgrade you to a comped paid subscription for free):
Or if you want to make a one-time contribution to my work (that will still be split with PROMO at the end of the month), you can Venmo me at @Ben-Greene-92095 :)
Whatever you’re able to do to help me expand the power of this work, and expand the reach of hope I’m able to share with people around the world, THANK YOU!!!
Emo Time!!
Yay, thanks to the folks who stuck around and read this far. Your reward is another peek behind the curtain, a moment of complete honesty and vulnerability about what it's meant to me to spend a year building this project.
The work that I get to do here—researching and writing, celebrating the wins as they come, holding each other in our pain and our fear, teaching about better ways to build a movement that moves—all these and more are the spaces where I feel myself well and truly coming alive.
I've shared my gratitude before and I will continue to share it again—there are over 12,000 of you here with me on this journey, and about 250 of you that have made the conscious choice to support my work further with a paid subscription.
All of you make this work possible, give me the reason to wake up every day and make this project—and the hope and joy that underpin it—a top priority.
Those of you who have been around for a while know that my goal with this project has been to teach people a new way of engaging with the news, advocacy, and the world around us. But what you might not know is my second goal. For a hot minute a few years ago, I was somewhat popular on Tiktok, and most of my videos started with the hook of "I'm your trans older brother". It was wholesome and affirming for the people who followed me, and I was excited to use my platform to build hope and talk more about some of the challenges I noticed within our community.
Yet, when I tried to make videos discussing nuance, bioessentialism, ableism, racism, or advocacy, the videos made it out to maybe a couple hundred people—hardly 1% of my audience.
When I transitioned to Substack, I decided I wanted to become a "Transgender Mr. Rogers". Once I had achieved that and built enough goodwill and trust among the people engaging with my writing, I would be able to give gentle constructive criticism to allies and advocates alike. By and large, I'm really proud that I think I have accomplished this goal. As I continue to build this platform up, there are more and more sticky topics I hope to walk us through with compassion and trust, but without trust I'm just pulling people into a quagmire of online debate. It is not lost on me that I have worked tremendously hard to earn your trust as readers, which is a privilege, not a right. I will continue to do my best to be balanced, kind, transparent, and worthy of that trust, and I hope you will let me know if I ever show up in a way that jeopardizes that.
I’m also so grateful for the muscles this project has helped me grow: I’m actively searching for good news all the time, and digging more deeply into bad news to understand impacts, threats, and actions we need to be taking. I’m protecting writing time every day of the week to work on this and other writing projects. Through Good Queer News, and through your support and encouragement, I get to live the life I want while fighting to build a better world for all of us.
You can call me a vermont maple because I am FULL of sap when I think about the people this project has brought into my life. Collaborators, people who have shown me tremendous kindness and encouragement, guest posts, people I’ve been able to support. Some people I’m honored to consider friends, peers, and role models include
, , , , , , , the whole team at , , , , , and so many more brilliant and thoughtful writers and changemakers. It would take me pages and pages to list all the brilliant people who make me a better writer and better person.It’s not just other writers that pull me up and make me more whole, though. It’s also the folks who respond to my emails, week after week, sending encouragement, ideas, and checking in to see how I’m doing. The people who send messages letting me know that these things I write all day then send out into the void are getting somewhere and meaning something to someone. The people who send me good news when they see it! The people who tell me they’re adding a Good Queer News feature to their own newsletter, or that they send every issue to their sibling or their trans kid. I want you all to know how tremendously much the love you give me means to me. I am in so many ways recharged and refueled by your love and support. Thank you so much.
Part of me doesn’t want to stop writing this piece—I want to stay here in this moment forever, thinking about all the people I love and the work I’ve been able to do. But I know that my mission of using hope and joy to build something better is far from done. We’ve got work to do! What a gift that none of us have to go at it alone.
Cheers to the first year, however long you’ve been here, and buckle up for EVEN MORE JOY in year two!!
From me and Chief Barketing Officer Oliver, We love you!!
Ben
Congratulations on a year of Good Queer News! It’s been amazing to follow along, and so uplifting. Best of luck on your next book and to year 2+! 😊
So grateful for your work!