For Queer Mice
by BROWWWSER
Here She Is, Boys! Here She Is, World!
n the very near future (if it hasn’t
happened already), a teenager struggling to come out to his family will say, "Mom,
I have something important to tell you. Please point your browser to
www.geocities.com/~imabigqueen for details." After his mother wakes up, she can
then visit websites like www.pflag.org to find out
truthful information about homosexuality, local support areas, and that it was her genes
that probably made him gay in the first place. She can also jump over to www.amazon.com and order "Now That You Know"
and other queer support books. I wish that when I was coming out, I had the resources
available now on the Internet back then (hey, watch it! I’m not that old yet...).
Anyway, this Pride column will help you get your own web page started so you can come out
to practically anyone with a modem. By doing so, you can help the next generation of
queers learn about themselves the right way, instead of the Catholic School way.
Amazingly enough, creating
your own web page is easier than it looks, and most of the time it’s free! Probably
the most well-known free hosting site is GeoCities.
They have 40 neighborhoods for you to choose from based on your interests, and
WestHollywood is their LGBT cyberghetto. So far over 38,000 happy homos have home pages in
WestHollywood and its suburbs: Heights, Stonewall, and Village. If you’re a sports
buff who happens to be gay, you might want to join the Colosseum neighborhood. Theater
lovers could find a home in Broadway, and computer geeks could settle in TimesSquare.
There’s bound to be a neighborhood for you at GeoCities.
To start, visit www.geocities.com and click the
‘join’ button. You can join for free as a Homesteader, which gives you 11
megabytes of space for your web page and a free e- mail account to boot. They have several
tools to help you get your page off the ground, including home page editors (who needs to
learn HTML?) and EZ file uploading. Then there’re the free add-ons: guestbook,
counter, feedback forms, banner exchange program, a GeoGuide navigation bar, and cool
effects like Java and VRML support. And it’s all free! For even more options and
space, sign up for their GeoPlus program for only $4.95 a month. Either way, find an empty
address in the neighborhood you want to stay in, fill out the easy form, and you’re
on your way to creating your own space in cyberspace.
Another up-and-coming company
offering free web space is Tripod at www.tripod.com. Instead of neighborhoods, areas of
interest are divided into pods from Activism to Zines. Both the Gay Men’s Pod and the
Lesbian Living Pods are fairly new, so join these growing queer communities today (their
Poderators will appreciate it!). You also get 11MB of space to play in, and page builders
to help you with that pesky HTML coding. They also have goodies like guestbooks, an online
answering machine, and more for members. Or upgrade to a premium pod for $3.00 per month
to get 22MB of space, your own chat room, and lots more. Even 11MB is enough space to make
one hell of a coming out page for your parents to see!
Several other companies offer free web space that are worth mentioning. Xoom at xoom.com/home/
offers 11MB of free web site space, your own XOOM e-mail address, and chat rooms for your
site. Also members can view classic movies right on their PC’s. Now that’s a
different angle. If you like your web site hosting company a little trashy, move in to www.trailerpark.com. Currently Phrantic’s Trailerpark has just filled up Phase 4, but
they’ll open up Phase 5 soon. While they don’t have a specific queer area, I
don’t think they turn anyone away! They only offer 3 meg plots, but as they say,
they’ve been "Sheltering the ‘Net homeless since 1994!" The
classier theglobe.com still has a naughty side and
offers 6 meg of space, free e-mail account, and a free chat area for members at www.theglobe.com. Your best bet for finding other
LGBT’s here are in their "Romance Cities," although it’s not the
easiest site to navigate. 
Members get plenty of perks, including tons
of forums, personal ads, games, movie and CD reviews, and more. Single chat-happy queers
will love it. Finally if you want a drag-and-drop website, pack your bags and go to www.homestead.com. Just log in and start creating your
site (if you have Netscape 3.01 or IE 4.0 or higher). Homestead
is a great way for non-profit groups to get on the net, since more than one person can
update your site and it’s (supposedly) easy to do. If you’re going to come out,
you might as well do it in style!
Now that you know where to get your own web site, what are you going to do with it?
That’s a whole separate column, but for ideas browse other queer homesteaders at the
sites listed above. Do you have a great coming out story, a hobby, or opinion you think
others will be interested in? A facet of queer living you don’t see on other web
pages? Think about what you can’t find on the web but you’d like to see (for
example: a home page for CHARIS, a gay St. Louis bar guide, or a queer "Choose
Your Own Adventure" game). Sure, you may get a few hate e-mails, but the number
of positive ones will more than make up for it. You’ll be helping others in their own
struggle to come out and accept themselves. And for me, that’s the true spirit of
Pride.
