A Letter From Our Publisher Pride 2025

Before you dive into our jam-packed and wholly inspiring Pride issue, I want to take a moment to reflect on the cover of our last issue (pictured). We were overwhelmed by the response. Hundreds of readers reached out to thank us for injecting some levity and hope into what feels like a relentlessly dire moment in our country. Many were especially tickled by our egg-hoarding Easter Bunny and our justice-smashing “Cluster Truck.” But, as you know, the message behind the satire was far more somber.

If you haven’t read GO’s May 2025 issue yet, the content of which echoes the urgency of that cover, please do. It’s worth your time.

And now, because it’s Pride and because I might have your attention for just a moment, allow me a brief soapbox sermon.

Still here? Good.

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra: “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

For the second time in less than a decade, we find ourselves staring down an administration that’s not just dangerous to democracy but openly committed to erasing, among so many other things…us.

Rather than simply cataloging the crises (and there are many), I want to offer one small, practical, and powerful thing I’ve committed to doing. My goal, shared by so many in our community, is to see this broken system begin to repair. I want to live in a country where I never again have to produce a post-election issue like the one we published in May.

In 2020, a majority of Americans, exhausted by chaos and desperate for change, came together to vote out an administration that had wrought unprecedented harm. It was an unlikely coalition—former enemies, strange bedfellows, and new allies—who united not out of shared vision, but shared alarm. And it worked. For a while.

But after that victory, we did what humans often do after surviving a storm: we exhaled. We got complacent. And now, here we are again.

So here’s the pitch: Desperate times call for direct action.

Start by sharing real news with those on the other side. With your uncle. Your college roommate. Even your like-minded co-worker who stopped talking politics because “it’s all so ugly now.” You don’t need to debate them or win them over in one conversation. Just share a vetted link, a trusted source. Facts.

Many of the people who voted for him in 2016 didn’t in 2020. And many of those same people could swing again if they see clearly what’s at stake. Elections are won by numbers, not noise. We won’t reclaim this country by screaming into our own echo chambers. We need to reach those who may not know what they’re voting for—
or against.

Don’t condescend. Don’t scold. Don’t “I told you so.” Just offer the truth. Let’s start there.

And in the meantime, mark this Pride with purpose, with volume, and with the kind of unapologetic presence that reminds the world we’re not going anywhere.

With love and hope, 

Amy