id Magazine is a monthly publication for the LGBTIQ community of Portland and Oregon. It is distributed online, and will have hard copies available in the Summer 2010. As all of Oregon is, we too are concerned about paper, ink, and fuel waste. We intend to do our best to keep these aspects of our magazine to a minimum.

How will we do this? We will urge you (our community) and your friends to subscribe to the magazine for a hard copy when it becomes available this summer. This way, we know exactly how many to print, and how to reallocate our resources for future uses. We know that going strictly online was not an option, though we discussed it. To meet somewhere in the middle, we saw that short runs of the hard copies were the decision that did just that.

Where We Came From and Who’s Involved

The genesis was the result of a concerned community who realized that there were stories in the community not getting visibility. Subjects like trans-gender issues, the youth, community members 50 years of age and up, and even our sports teams have had limited visibility in the local media. Now, all that has changed.

id Magazine is different. We cover unique stories in a fresh way, featuring people in the community, local authors and photographers from the community, and do it all being green-friendly as possible. id Magazine tackles tough issues including: obesity, body-image complexities, healthy HIV living, and transitioning in the work place.

Publisher, Christian Messer took the initiative to take the idea and turn it into a full-fledged magazine. Messer was fortunate to have worked seven years within and beyond the LGBTIQ community, and built up a strong network of business professionals. The first official meeting was with writers Nikki Jardin, Nikki Jauron, Zach Newman, and Mike Hunt.