The ''Seattle Gay News'' is a weekly newspaper aimed at the

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

and

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...

area

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

community in the U.S. state of Washington. As of 2023, the SGN is distributed to every library in the

King County Library System The King County Library System (KCLS) is a public library system serving most residents of King County, Washington, United States. It has 49 locations in the areas of the county around Seattle, which has a separate Seattle Public Library, city l ...

, Seattle Public Library System, and Pierce County Library System, as well as roughly 115 other locations in Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham, Spokane and Ocean Shores. George Bakan at DADT Repeal Party at Lobby Bar in 2011 by Nate Gowdy - SGN Cover

George Bakan at DADT Repeal Party at Lobby Bar in 2011 by Nate Gowdy - SGN Cover

History

The newspaper was founded in 1974 by Jim Tully and Jim Arnold. Editor George Bakan, an LGBTQ+ activist in Seattle, acted as head of the SGN from 1984 until his death from a sudden heart attack in 2020. His daughter Angela Cragin then took over his role at the paper. In 2021, staff began restructuring the paper to improve its diversity and inclusivity. In the same year, SGN launched a

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

as part of the restructuring effort. In 2023, Cragin sold the publication to Stratus Group LLC, owned by Mike Schultz. A year later he sold SGN to Prism Pride Press, owned by Renee Raketty.

Archive

SGN files are preserved in the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. The SGN is archived at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

(Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library),

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

(Suzzallo Library) in Seattle, the Seattle Public Library (Central Library) and the Stonewall National Museum, Archive and Library in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Microfiche A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

copies of the archives can be found at UW and the Seattle Public Library. The Washington State Library in partnership with the Suzzallo Library and the SGN digitized the SGN's archive from 1974 through 2020 (although only in black & white). Additionally, every issue of the SGN was scanned in full color and uploaded to

Issuu Issuu, Inc. (pronounced "issue") is a Danish-founded American electronic publishing platform based in Palo Alto, California, United States. The company's software converts PDFs into customizable digital publications that can be shared via links ...

References

External links

*
issuu archive

Washington Digital Newspapers archives
hosted by the Secretary of State of Washington {{LGBTQ culture in Seattle LGBTQ culture in Seattle LGBTQ-related newspapers published in the United States Newspapers published in Seattle 1974 establishments in Washington (state) Newspapers established in 1974