Lesbian founder
of LGBT newspaper dies of cancer

The founding publisher of the Texas Triangle, a gay newspaper based in Austin, died Thursday of pancreatic cancer. She was 69.

Kay Longcope launched the newspaper in 1992, after she had moved to Austin and noticed there was minimal local coverage of gay and lesbian issues, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Longcope was just the right person for the job, having published her first newspaper as an elementary school student, using a mimeograph machine. She later worked on her high school newspaper and then wrote for the University of Texas student newspaper. Ten years out of college, she worked for the United Council of Churches in New York, and then moved on to the Boston Globe in the 1970s, where she worked for 22 years, covering civil rights and later gay and lesbian issues.

Longcope started the Triangle with her partner, Barbara Wohlgemuth, who was also the business manager of the paper.

"I just don't know how to convey to you what an amazing person she was," Wohlgemuth said of her partner of 17 years, talking to the American-Statesman. She added that the newspaper inspired gay Austin citizens to identify with each other and instilled a sense of pride.

"People just loved it because it was just different from any other gay paper," Wohlgemuth said. "It was a paper they could show their parents or leave on their coffee table." (The Advocate)