Reader retention, 36 months
Newsletter subscribers who open or click at least one issue per quarter — verified against our public analytics dashboard.
Curated by our editors from across 4,847 contributors. Politics, criticism, lived experience, and the occasional argument. Free, unpaywalled, and yours to keep forever in a searchable archive dating back to 2009.
No paywall, no churn tricks, no popups. Just the retention curve of readers who decided, week after week, that this was worth opening.
Newsletter subscribers who open or click at least one issue per quarter — verified against our public analytics dashboard.
Across the full network, measured by Google Analytics 4. Average session of 6 minutes 18 seconds — 3.4× the publishing benchmark.
Every story ever published on GayBloggers, fully searchable back to the first post in June 2009. Yours to browse for free.
All figures verified via the GayBloggers public analytics dashboard · Last updated January 2026
A look at the table of contents for Issue No. 728, organized the way the email actually reads — by department, not by algorithm.
By Aiyana Whitlock · 6 min read
By Mateo Reyes · 11 min read
By Devon Reyes · 9 min read
By Iris Okafor · 7 min read
By Jules Marin · 12 min read
By Sam Holloway · 14 min read
By Tomás Vidal · 8 min read
From the editors · replies open
By the editors · 5 min read
Sample drawn from Issue No. 728 (this week) · browse 728 back-issues in the archive →
The rhythm your Thursdays will fall into once you're subscribed. Each issue runs roughly 2,400 words, designed to read in a single sitting over coffee.
Six short items that explain what shifted in LGBTQ+ politics, culture, and media since last Thursday. Built to be skimmed in under three minutes — but every link is worth following.
6 items · 3 min · curated by the deskOne writer from our 4,847-person network, profiled with three of their recent pieces and a short interview about why they write for GayBloggers specifically. A way to know the names behind the bylines.
1 writer · 5 min · rotating weeklyThe five pieces our editors flagged this week across the network — the ones we'd send to a friend if we only had time to share one thing. Always unpaywalled, often from writers under 1,000 followers.
5 picks · 1 min · reader-supported picksA single prompt each week — answered by you, the readers. Past threads have produced some of our most-circulated community writing. We publish the best replies in the following issue.
1 prompt · replies open until next Thursday"I have written for nine publications. GayBloggers is the only one where my editor reads every draft, responds within a day, and pays within a week. The newsletter is the front door — it's how 80% of my readers find me."
Naima Bell"I read it on the subway every Thursday morning. It's the only newsletter I never archive unread. When something big happens in queer news, I know the GayBloggers brief will explain it to me before anyone else does."
"GayBloggers' Thursday newsletter has become a primary source for our reporting on queer digital culture. We cite it roughly once a month — and we trust the editorial voice in a way we trust very few independent outlets."
GayBloggers has been featured or cited by The Guardian, NPR, Slate, Vox, and The Washington Post over 240 times since 2015. We won the 2023 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Blog and the 2022 NLGJA Award for Outstanding Online Community.
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