It occurred to me this week that if you’re reading this, whether you’re queer or not, chances are you have at least some interest in, you know, gay stuff. So, this column being but a tiny drop in the queer blogging ocean, I thought I’d round up some other sites that deserve a spot in your RSS feed-reading software of choice.
While we’re at it, I’ll also give a shout out to Snarfer, the program I use to aggregate my RSS feeds. It’s much more user-friendly than Google Reader; it downloads the whole webpage rather than just the text, which means you get the full visual experience of the site you’re reading; and it works offline.
We now return to your scheduled LGBT blog round-up. The biggest and most comprehensive is The Bilerico Project, a massive group blog with more than 50 contributors. It started out as a politics blog but it’s grown to include all kinds of queer-themed content including pop culture, music, and an advice column. The great thing about Bilerico’s size is that it manages to cover a tremendous amount of ground; their bloggers have something to say about most of the major (and many of the smaller) LGBT–related happenings in the US. The content can be slightly overwhelming in its volume, but the site’s layout makes it easy enough to pick through for posts you want to read.

Lesbian Dad is, as you might imagine, a lesbian parenting blog. Winner of Best Lesbian Parenting Blog at last year’s Lezzies, the blog’s author writes about her experiences as the butch non-birth mother to her and her partner’s two young children. The great thing about kids is that they provide fantastic comedy material, which makes Lesbian Dad an always entertaining read. It’s also frequently moving, especially in its Prop 8 <a href=”http://www.lesbiandad.net/2008/11/02/tonights-chat-with-pops/” title=”Read the blog post”commentary (she and her partner live in San Francisco).
My favourite recent discovery is Slap Upside The Head, which illustrates the best and worst LGBT-themed stories in the news. The Author’s drawings (he just goes by “Mark”) are reliably adorable, and with so many blogs covering the same ground, Slap Upside The Head is refreshingly different. Also, its lighthearted approach to rage-provoking events makes it a pleasant way to keep up with what’s going on without becoming wrapped up in the emotions of it all. Bonus points here for the blog’s Canadian focus.
Finally, in the almost entirely non-political corner, is an amazing personal blog called This Girl Called Automatic Win that, amongst other things, contains some really beautiful writing and offbeat content. AutoWin’s author also posts some pretty awesome L Word episode recaps at her spin-off pop culture blog, Automatic Straddle, which are actually more fun than watching the episode.
Cate Simpson is a freelance journalist and the web editor for Shameless magazine. She lives in Toronto.