Continuing the Proud Legacy of Local LGBT Media

BY: COLIN MURPHY - SENIOR WRITER

    With the relaunch of Vital VOICE magazine, we continue the proud legacy of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media here in the Gateway City. I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved over the past nine years under former Publisher, Pam Schneider and am equally excited about the new direction and style the publication is taking as Darin Slyman takes the helm.

    Like our predecessor, The Lesbian and Gay News Telegraph, Vital VOICE has always been considered our community’s newspaper of record. Indeed, we were born out of the Telegraph’s demise and its founder and editor served in the latter capacity our first year. So let there be no mistake—we will continue to be the source for local LGBT news, politics and features at www.thevitalvoice.com. The website not only offers unlimited space but it allows us to be timely, which is key. As Senior Writer, I will personally be heading up this effort so feel free to contact me with your suggestion, inquiries and press releases. We also hope to make use of video and audio reports down the road in addition to revamping the website.

    As you see, the print publication—which is monthly at the moment—has been totally redesigned. Within these pages you will find entertainment and lifestyle, features and commentary, dining, nightlife, home and hearth. It will be a cornucopia of interest to the LGBT community and most importantly, fun to read.

    We’re striving to harness a hybrid in media—the popularity of an entertainment and lifestyle publication married with our charge to provide accurate, timely, and thought provoking news. Accordingly, by making the best use of our print and web editions, I believe we’ll do just that.

    Each of us in the LGBT community stands on the shoulders of those who came before us and Vital Voice is no different. We owe a debt to the generations who helped to prepare the ground before us. For the rise of the LGBT press throughout the latter half of the last century is a uniquely American tale. At that point in time—and some may argue, to this very day—the mainstream media had no interest in reporting our stories. Local publications wouldn’t place our ads. Undaunted, we created our own publications that despite slim budgets and demanding deadlines, began to flourish. They are a slice of urban individuality that helps to inform, celebrate, entertain and shape our community.

THE 1970s

    As early as the 1940s, area African American newspapers like The Whirl and Crusader were known to cover certain events (mainly drag) in the LGBT community—but the first official homophile publication in St. Louis was Mandrake, a monthly newsletter published by The Mandrake Society. Mandrake was St. Louis' first LGBT rights group founded in 1969 when nine female impersonators were arrested at a gay bar following a police raid. The publication ran from 1970-1973 and featured bar ads, articles and national news items copied from The Advocate.

    "It [queer life in the early 1970s] was all word of mouth," recalled LGBT activist, scribe and Left Bank Books proprietor, Kris Kleindienst in a 2002 interview with Vital VOICE. "There wasn’t much else—you went to bars, you went to parties and you read of national things in underground newspapers and books. There was no radio, no paper and nothing in the mainstream news. There was a lot more fear, discretion, and actively-expressed self-loathing. We were homosexuals. The language was archaic."

    Kleindienst was part of a lesbian collective in the early 1970s which met in houses up and down Westminster, Washington, and McPherson in the Central West End, which was run down at the time. It was called "Women’s House" and together they published an underground newsletter which grew into one of St. Louis' first LGBT publications. Moonstorm, first published in 1973 on a printing press in the collective’s basement ran throughout the decade.

    In 1975 the first issue of Primetime was published by the Mid-Continent Life Services Corporation (MLSC), an early gay rights organization that operated the St. Louis Gay Hotline. The organization soon changed the publication’s name to Gay St. Louis—a daring and empowering title for the day. It published until 1978.

    Realizing the importance of having a LGBT publication, Gay Life Magazine was founded in 1978 by the late, Bill Cordes to fill the void of its predecessor. His would become a full-size, color publication that was extremely popular, and included various local talent such as the late, Lisa Wagaman (MoDyke). But due to the fact that advertisers were reluctant to purchase space in a gay magazine, a one dollar charge was levied at newsstands throughout the city—including one at Lambert Airport—a first for any St. Louis LGBT publication. Gay Life ended its run in 1979.

 THE 1980s

    The 1980s proved a defining decade for LGBT publications. No Bad News hit the streets in 1980 and ran for five years. The Lesbian and Gay News Telegraph started its 19-year run in 1981. Viewpoint debuted in 1986 publishing for a couple of years. Plus premiered and disappeared in 1987 and The Show Me Guide enjoyed a healthy run from 1988-1992.

    These publications played an intricate role in informing a frightened community in the face of AIDS. In the early days of the disease the mainstream media mirrored the government’s silence and inaction. It was the LGBT media who rang the alarm. It was the LGBT media who postulated on whether the disease was sexually transmitted, reported the body count, and investigated new drugs and therapies. Despite the decimation, it was the LGBT media’s finest hour.

 THE 1990s 

    The 1990s were the pinnacle for LGBT print media. Lestalk was published "by womyn for womyn" throughout the early 1990s before changing its name to the short-lived Kolours in 1996. The St. Louis Advisor premiered in 1991 publishing for a few years. TWISL ran from 1992 -1996 before becoming EXP and running for another decade. Slam! Magazine proved popular from 1995-2000. For a brief time there was Slam! Extra, a tongue-in-cheek National Enquirer spoof. Lookout published from 1997-1998 as did GALLIP, the first all glossy publication. And Outlook rounded out the decade publishing in 1997 and then sporadically for a couple of years.

    The 1990s also saw the embrace of other forms of media. "Outlook St. Louis" aired 12 half-hour episodes on cable access from 1995-1996. Taped at Webster University, the show was hosted by Carol Robinson and Rodney Wilson and was all about the Gateway City LGBT community. Brad Graham did commentaries, Thomas Long did reports, Bert Coleman did entertainment  and Ken Haller did some commentaries. Ellen Dubinsky and Mark Griepenstroh produced.

    Similarly, in 1989, "Coming Out of Hiding" debuted on radio’s KDHX and ran throughout the next decade. The 1990s also gave birth to the Internet and its myriad websites, including St. Louis’ oldest queer offering, gaystlouis.com founded in 1997.

 2000 & BEYOND

    By the dawn of the Millennium it was clear that people were getting their news and information from cable and Internet and the gay community was no different. For what was a boom for webzines and blogs meant lean times for many LGBT publications.

TwiSt.Louis made a run for it in 2002 and was shuttered after two years and Kansas City carpet bagger, St. Louis Exposures fell flat in 2007/2008. Today, Vital VOICE, founded in 2001 and Saint Louis Unlimited, which made its debut in 2008, are the lone LGBT print publications in the Gateway City.

    Indeed, both publications stand on the shoulders of giants and we at Vital VOICE magazine look forward to serving the next generation of LGBT St. Louis and beyond.

 You can email Colin Murphy at colin_murphy@sbcglobal.net

*Primetime cover art provided by the Western Historical Manuscript Collection - University of Missouri - St. Louis