Website launches to serve lesbian community

The gay community in Chicago has long been associated with Boystown, where the majority of gay-friendly social events take place. Until recently, the "other letters" of the LGBTQ community haven't been as recognized, but thanks to theLstop.org, lesbians, bi-sexuals, and transgenders now have a place to go to find representation.

The L Stop is a new website that delivers news, opinions, and social events pertaining to the lesbian community, focusing mainly on the Chicago area.

"Even though a small handful of Chicago-based gay publications do exist, you will find that most of them dedicate only a very small portion of their total coverage to addressing the needs and concerns of the lesbian community," reads the website's mission statement.

"We have been brainstorming and developing the idea for about a year and a half," said Lisa Martinez, co-founder of the website. "Over drinks one night, my business partner, Vivian Gonzalez, and I were talking about how hard it is to keep up with all the random girl nights that go on around the city. Since we are both web designers, we figured we should just take matters into our own hands and built a site that would fill that void in our community."
The L Stop has an impressive staff of writers, all of whom are women, and who provide readers with stories and blogs about topics ranging anywhere from politics to high heels to this seasons' social events.

"We have been looking for a really diverse group of writers," Martinez said. "Everyone on staff right now has their own personality, their own interests, and they are all at their own personal stage in life right now."

Just like its intended readers, The L Stop's writers all have diverse backgrounds, not only in the journalistic community, but also the LGBTQ community.

"We have writers who are young and who just recently came out, and we have much older writers who have been out for a very long time and have a much different perspective of the community that they can share with us," Martinez said. "We want to make sure that no matter how old you are, or what your interests are, that you can come to our site and find a good range of topics that you can really relate to. And of course, we are looking for people who are passionate about sharing those interests and experiences with everyone."

The website itself is easy to navigate, welcoming, and fun. After coming up with the idea for the project, Martinez and the website's other co-founder, Vivian Gonzalez, researched similar websites devoted to the lesbian communities in other cities. From there, they decided which positive aspects to bring to their website, and got ideas for new additions and for the layout.
In addition to a social calendar and recent news pertaining to the LGBTQ community, The L Stop offers insightful and informative blogs with a wide range of focuses. The blog Effing Dykes was winner of the 2011 Bloggie Awards. According to The L Stop, Effing Dykes is "a humor blog about harnessing your lesbian gaydar - helping you spot the ladies faster, so we can all get laid."
The website also offers the blog The Athlesbian, which covers Chicagoland women's sports, including Roller Derby. Another of the website's blogs, the Ovary Office, provides readers with political news within the LGBTQ community.

"I heard about it from a friend," said Pam Casale, 24, a Lakeview resident and member of the LGBTQ community. "It's nice to have somewhere to go that has what I'm looking for in both my city and also my lesbian community. Plus, the blogs are just hilarious."
Although the intended audience is mainly the lesbian community, the website can also be relevant to other readers.

"I think the website is useful to all women-identified persons in the LBTQ community," Martinez said. "We do have a food column called Lipstick In the Kitchen that would be useful to anyone who is looking for healthy recipes."

http://www.depauliaonline.com/mobile/news/website-launches-to-serve-lesbian-community-1.2415829

http://thelstop.org/