In today’s changing media landscape, all journalists are navigating an uncertain and scary time—newsroom layoffs, company mergers, rollbacks of diversity initiatives, and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) have threatened jobs and made freelance writing and reporting an increasingly difficult venture. Queer journalists have been particularly affected by these layoffs and, in a politically volatile climate under President Donald Trump’s leadership, find themselves up against an administration actively trying to rewrite LGBTQ+ history, especially as it pertains to transgender people.
In February, Equalpride, the parent company of leading LGBTQ+ outlets The Advocate, Out, Health PLUS Wellness, and Pride.com, laid off a slew of top editors and staffers, including The Advocate’s editor-in-chief. Meanwhile, The Washington Post cut nearly one-third of its newsroom, as directed by its billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, including reporters focused on race and ethnicity. In March, PinkNews, which describes itself as the “world’s largest and most influential LGBTQ+ led media brand,” announced it is pivoting to a “reporter-free newsroom” that will rely on clickbait and repopulated press releases; it’s unclear if the organization will use AI to write or post articles.
“From what I’ve heard, [layoffs are] across the board—it’s not one part of the industry. All journalists are being impacted,” Ken Miguel, board president of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, tells The Progressive. “Even if we have the people that are left behind, in many cases, they’re picking up more work for the same amount of money. So where do we draw the line at having a free press that’s representative of the people, and at the same time letting people live a decent life and earn a decent wage?”
Layoffs continue throughout the industry, creating fear among journalists about who will be next at their respective publications. Veteran reporters and those just breaking into the field find themselves in a similar boat. In such an uncertain time, 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.
Diane Anderson-Minshall, who became the first female chief executive officer of LGBTQ+ publisher Pride Media (now known as Equalpride) in 2020, stresses the importance of young journalists studying the history of queer-led publications in order to understand how we got to where we are today. Outlets such as The Advocate started publishing in the late 1960s in response to police raids of queer bars; the 1980s saw the rise of LGBTQ+ newspapers and regional outlets; and the 1990s featured advertiser-driven glossy magazines with covers that showcased celebrities and fashion trends. At the time, these were topics, Anderson-Minshall says, that “people had wanted and were missing seeing themselves in mainstream media . . . that were validating and empowering for us.”
Since then, many queer-focused publications have been at the forefront of telling high-profile coming-out stories when public figures are ready to open up to the public—though in the past ten years, as society has shifted away from straight being the “norm,” outlets don’t focus as much on coming-out narratives. Adam Vary, a gay journalist and editor, says that diverse queer representation on magazine covers has often been a complex struggle.
“There [was] so much attention paid, especially in the 2000s, to how frequently The Advocate and Out put straight, hot men on their cover, as opposed to queer people,” Vary says. “The feeling was that if you put a queer person on your cover, it wasn’t going to sell as well. It was also harder to find queer people that were willing to be on the cover at that point, in a way that was going to enhance their career.” And even when queer people made it onto the cover, representation has historically been focused on young, cisgender white men.
Ellen DeGeneres coming out on the cover of Time in 1997 paved the way for mainstream media outlets to start competing with LGBTQ+ outlets for big coming-out stories and celebrity cover profiles in the twenty-first century. Things look different now, even during Pride Month, as companies have shifted their ad dollars away from LGBTQ+ outlets in the wake of the Trump Administration’s rhetoric and legislation targeting the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans people. “The mainstream media is cooling on [queer people], and we’re in another period of great political change and political attack,” says Anderson-Minshall.
In February, when Equalpride laid off high-profile employees, Chief Executive Officer Mark Berryhill cited “cancellations of major advertising campaigns” under the “current economic concerns and challenges” in a memo sent to staff. Later that same week, the company announced its acquisition of Them, a digital publication that was previously under the Condé Nast umbrella. Them is now grouped alongside other LGBTQ+ brands serving similar audiences. Anderson-Minshall says Equalpride’s decision to combine brands in print and take magazines off newsstands, including the combination of Out and The Advocate into one “flipbook design” in March 2024, has contributed to the organization’s problems. “There’s no reason,” she says, “for the largest LGBTQ+ media outlets in the country to be doing layoffs right now, if they’re doing things correctly.”
The work of organizations like GLAAD, NLGJA, and GALECA, also known as the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (of which this author is a voting member), is particularly important now in keeping the LGBTQ+ community informed and ensuring that resources and opportunities for queer journalists are shared equally. Both GLAAD and GALECA host yearly award shows in Los Angeles, California, celebrating the most impactful media of the year, while NLGJA hosts an annual convention bringing members together for networking and career opportunities.
Christie Citranglo, an editor at OPIS, attends NLGJA conventions to speak directly with media outlets about their inclusion efforts: “You can get a sense for different companies and how they feel about LGBTQ+ rights as an employee, which has been pretty invaluable.”
Citranglo, who covers energy and climate news and uses she/they pronouns, has been laid off three times since the pandemic. When interviewing for any new position, they are strategic about asking companies for their six-month to year-long staff retention plan. “I noticed if they don’t really have an answer for anything beyond three or so months, the waters seem a little too murky for me to feel safe to jump into that environment,” Citranglo says. “Are you even planning on keeping me around?”
Journalists have increasingly turned to podcasts, social media platforms, and sites like Substack to continue building an audience. On her Substack The Audacity., queer author Roxane Gay, who is openly bisexual, regularly reaches more than 172,000 readers with posts spotlighting the work of emerging writers. Tracy Gilchrist, who went viral in 2024 while interviewing Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande during the Wicked press tour, has launched her own podcast, called Holding Space with Tracy Gilchrist.
It’s a notable reframing for reporters who grew up in a pre-digital era and focused on dedicating years to growing the news outlet they were hired to support—which, for queer journalists, often meant not bringing as much of their authentic self into the newsroom. It’s also indicative of the need to find other means of income as traditional media jobs become harder to find. Many journalists are now focused on building their own personal brand rather than working to build an established company’s brand and portfolio. For some LGBTQ+ podcasters, for example, that looks like talking openly about their lived experiences with other queer people.
With increasingly popular podcasts like Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’s Las Culturistas and the queer documentary podcast Cruising, young queer people are finding alternative means of accessing affirming content as established brands and mainstream media outlets lose their trust.
“There’s a lot of independent people that I think younger queers are going to and trusting [now] that maybe established LGBTQ+ media isn’t revered as much as it used to be. That’s just been a learning curve for me because I dedicated a lot of time to those brands,” Gilchrist says, citing her previous work at The Advocate and Pride.com. “I want them to thrive, but at this point, I’m really excited about independent people.”
When sites get taken down or bought out, journalists’ written work often gets lost to the Internet abyss if it’s not published in print. Concerns have risen over the future of the Internet Archive after multiple news organizations restricted the Wayback Machine (part of the Internet Archive) from archiving digital stories. After seeing many people in her network lose access to their written articles, Anderson-Minshall began encouraging journalists to publish their work on multiple platforms at the same time, including sites like Substack and YouTube. The stakes are especially high for queer journalists working in a political environment where articles published against the Trump Administration’s policies, including stories regarding attacks on trans rights and reproductive care, are often labeled as “fake news.”
As someone who identifies as gender fluid, Citranglo has had to navigate unique challenges that many LGBTQ+ journalists have to consider, such as how much of their personal life and identity they should share in the newsroom, not knowing how co-workers will react.
“There’s a lot more we have to navigate around how we present ourselves, how we conduct ourselves with different interviews, and how we interact with our co-workers,” she says. “I have luckily been fully remote as a journalist since 2020, [but] one of the struggles that I really had was just getting dressed every morning and going to work in an office.” Since coming out as gender fluid, Citranglo has opted to put she/they pronouns on business cards and thinks being open with their co-workers has been the best decision.
From his own experience, Vary has observed entertainment journalism as a space filled with many queer people. “Any stigma or barriers that might be more present in other sectors of journalism, I just have not personally experienced in a meaningful way. I’ve had many queer bosses; I’ve had many queer colleagues,” he says.
As the board president of a large organization that interacts with hundreds of journalists, including working with other organizations like the Asian American Journalists Association and National Association of Black Journalists, Miguel recognizes that many reporters are “re-evaluating” how much the industry truly values the work they put in. As someone who has worked in local newsrooms across the country since 1995, he looks back at other major inflection points like the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, saying that the 2026 layoffs do not “seem as brutal.”
“In 2008, newsrooms were cleared out of people. Technology had taken over so many jobs. Yeah, we’re seeing that now with AI, but the thing about a lot of the AI stuff—at least in journalism—is that you still need boots on the ground to ask questions,” Miguel says. “It feels bad to people who have never experienced it.”
Moods were different among the many journalists and editors The Progressive spoke with. Looking back at the history of queer-led publications, and how many have persisted over multiple decades throughout different financial and political struggles, is encouraging. But a clear pattern emerged in how queer journalists are focused on investing in themselves and their surrounding communities as the future looks uncertain.
“The state of it is in our hands,” Gilchrist says of queer media. “The more that organizations and gatekeepers and the 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.”