Nicole Akers has admitted through an intermediary (Yesterday, in a Facebook group called Medium Dreamers, via Darcy Reeder) that she has rejected LGBTQ writers in advance, based on their writing in other publications. She admits to combing through writers’ work in other publications to screen their views before she’ll consider anything they may write specifically for her. By very many reports, she then rejects LGBTQ writers if, in her own words, she disagrees with their ‘social stance.’

In the case of Daryl Bruce, to cite one example, that ‘social stance' is nothing more than having written about LGBTQ equality in a very small proportion of his articles, in a respectful, entirely PG manner.

She’s rejecting people based on their identities, not the content of what they propose to write for her.

As another writer mentioned in Medium Dreamers, if she was doing this as the manager of a print publication, she could expect to have the pants sued off of her.

By the way, to say she has a few LGBTQ writers isn’t quite accurate. She may have two or three, who rarely ever publish with her.

She summarily rejects just about everyone else. What’s she’s doing is best defined as ‘tokenism,’ and doesn’t make up for the systematic discrimination she otherwise engages in.

cc: Casey Botticello