LGBTQ Nation


LGBTQ Nation is a news outlet, and online newsmagazine, focused on content for, and about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. Started in 2010 as an independent, LGBTQ-owned news source, it is the most followed LGBTQ news magazine. As of July 2016, it is one of the top five most visited LGBTQ news websites. They offer news availabile by state, and international sources; as well as commentary. As of July 2015, LGBTQ Nation operates as a subsidiary of Q.Digital, Inc. The editor is Bil Browning.
They are active in social media including on: Facebook; Twitter; Google+; Tumblr; Pinterest; and YouTube. They have an estimated $10 million in revenue.

Yearly readers poll

LGBTQ Nation conducts yearly readers polls contest to select, among others, the Person of the Year, ostensibly the year’s top LGBTQ newsmaker.

2011

In 2011, the Person of the Year was Daniel Hernández Jr. Earlier in 2011, while a student at the University of Arizona, Hernandez started an internship with the office of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. During the first week he was helping out at a "Congress on your Corner" event, which ended in an attempted assassination of her. After Giffords was shot in the head, Hernandez immediately thought that the head injury might cause her to choke on her own blood, so he held her up and stanched the bleeding with his hand until employees from inside a nearby grocery store brought him clean smocks. In doing so, he is credited with saving her life. Later that year, he was elected to the board of the Sunnyside Unified School District. He was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in the 2016 elections.
In 2011 the LGBTQ “Ally of the Year” was Admiral Mike Mullen. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, February 2010, Mullen said that he fully supported President Barack Obama's decision to end the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, which prevented openly gay people from serving in the military. "It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do," Mullen said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
President Obama, Secretary of Defense Panetta and Admiral Mullen provided the certification to authorize the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act. Implementation of the repeal was completed sixty days later, so that DADT was no longer policy as of September 2011.

2016

Person of the Year

In 2016 they were criticized for selecting Milo Yiannopoulos, “a poster child for” the alt-right, a movement “linked to white supremacy, racism, xenophobia, sexism, and homophobia”. He was not selected to be in the poll but the rules did not require voters be readers of the news site; the votes were prompted by alt-right influencers, and media outlets like Breitbart where he worked.

People of the Year

In 2016, the Pulse nightclub attack victims were named People of the Year. LGBTQ Nation, and the other top five LGBTQ news websites, were criticized for the coverage of the forty-nine murder victims, most of who were LGBTQ, as well as people of color POC, mostly Latinx queer people. The coverage tended to ignore the intersectionality of the victims: emphasizing them being LGBTQ, while minimizing, or omitting their being POC; discussing security while ignoring historical oppression of LGBTQ, and POC communities by police, and security personnel; looking at LGBTQ romantic lives through a heteronormative focus; and ethnic imperialism, positioning POC, and immigrants as less evolved, or informed as White U.S. citizens.
LGBTQ Nation was alone in not printing all the names, and photos, or other identifying information: this is relevant in that not all the victims were out to their families; and some were not legal immigrants; such information could affect other family members or trigger deportation processes.