Behind the scenes with the Winter 2009-10 issue editors.
Managing editor Ben Wolford, left, and editor Adam Griffiths
From the editor
As we wrap up this winter edition, I keep thinking back to glass ceilings. It’s the notion of not being able to tell how far the limits of the equal rights we presently have can be pushed and overcome.
But this is the fourth issue of Fusion I’ve had the honor of delivering, and after scanning them all, the glass ceiling is getting thinner, lower and harder to see. As we herald the second decade of the 21st century, the ambiguous barrier society erects to refuse us LGBT people our rights is increasingly, well, Plexiglas.
In some spots, it’s inches thick. In Maine or New York, everyone expected same-sex marriage to pass easily this past fall. But there the invisible wall went up again, and it wasn’t clear until after the votes, much as it wasn’t clear in 2004 when Ohio passed Issue 1 banning same-sex marriage, how much harder we’re going to have to fight.
In others, it’s already cracking. In this issue, those we speak to explain how they’re breaking through, how being open about who they are is a non-issue and how the world is accepting them for who they are — straight, gay, bisexual, transgender, whatever.
This past October, thousands took to the streets of our nation’s capital in an effort to bulldoze preconceptions, misconceptions and the ignorance in-between. For the first time in this generation’s memory, walls became and keep becoming mirrors. And while I hope you see reflections growing stronger, we must keep pushing until, no matter the image, all people are equal and united.
So go ahead, use this issue of Fusion and hammer away.
— Adam Griffiths
FUSION WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU
Send us your comments in a letter or online at ThatGayMagazine.com. Send letters to Fusion, 205 Franklin Hall, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44240; fax to 330-672-4880; or e-mail us at [email protected] for your response in our spring issue.
From the managing editor:
You have no idea how many of my friends think I’m gay now. Even my girlfriend is beginning to wonder. It’s OK though. I kind of expected it when I knew I was going to be Fusion’s managing editor.
And besides, I haven’t worked for this magazine for the last three semesters because I’m gay and have a deeply held stake in LGBT issues — I just care about equality. I’ve contributed stories and edited them for so long because I love the human interest in the next 40-some pages.
I love reading people’s stories — the woman who gives her time to help prevent the spread of HIV and sexual education at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent, the Kent State women’s rugby team and its fostering acceptance, the man who shares his sex-change story for the whole country on MTV. There are people all around us doing incredible things, and Fusion strives to share their stories.
That’s what good journalism is all about, right? Sure, we seek to uphold our American democracy by informing the electorate and keeping the government of and by the people.
But there’s more than that. Journalism is a means for documenting our daily experience — our collective daily experience. It’s a common thread that reminds us of our shared humanity.
So if Fusion does anything to bring you closer to someone else’s life and inspires your notion of solidarity, then this issue has done its job.
— Ben Wolford
(This article originally appeared in the Winter 2009-10 print edition.)
