UPDATE: Things are moving quickly and people are still coming forward with plans to rescue Gay Star News in some form or another. Naturally we will do all we can to make it happen and we are grateful beyond measure for all those trying to help.

We are devastated to have to confirm the reports that Gay Star News has to close, effective immediately.

The site is no longer being updated. We don’t know how long it will remain online for but we will try to preserve it for as long as possible. Some of you will already have heard this news. It started to break late last night via Twitter. Of course, we would have wished to tell the story first ourselves. However, our priority was to do what we can for our amazing team and the others directly affected by what is happening.

Why is GSN closing?

Firstly, we feel you deserve to know why we have to close. Since we started almost eight years ago, Gay Star News has been able to serve our community and grow. It was clear from the outset that you, our readers and supporters around the world, wanted to hear about and engage with the stories we were telling.

However, it has always been a tough business. This year, it got unexpectedly much tougher. We entered 2019 with every reason to be confident we were going to have a strong year. But as the year progressed, decisions have been delayed and projects people had committed to do with us have fallen flat.

There are a number of reasons, of course. But the biggest change was the level of confidence brands and businesses in the UK have, due to the uncertainty over Brexit. It won’t surprise anyone to hear that many media organisations are struggling with the same problem.

There has also been another trend which has become more apparent this year. Brands which are wishing to ‘do’ LGBTI work are increasingly doing so in a tokenistic way. Rather than working with us to engage and serve LGBTI people year round, many have chosen to ‘rainbow wash’. They have turned their logo rainbow colored for Pride week or month and – at best – made a small donation to an LGBTI good cause. Worst still, we have learned that some brands have done this while at the same time funding anti-LGBTI politicians to the tune of millions of dollars. Tokenism has reached a new low. Read more via Gay Star News