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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

It’s Official: Shannon Thomas Out at LGBT Center

posted by on July 25 at 16:08 PM

The email that was sent out today…

From: Shannon Thomas < shannon@seattlelgbt.org> Date: Jul 25, 2007 2:17 PM Subject: Center Updates

Hey Volunteers,

First of all, a HUGE shout out and thank you for all your wonderful volunteer time and energy. We had a fantastic couple of months…Fruit Bowl was a huge success with nearly 400 in attendance (our largest ever), as was QueerFest. This past year we also had two organizations (Ingersoll and GCSS) merge with The Center, we held a very successful winter event (SnowBall), we made huge impacts in our community through the work of our Fiscal Projects (including Inlaws & Outlaws, ERW, FTM Gender Odyssey, and more), and QArts had 12 great shows, all curated by volunteers.

We have many exciting things planned for this next year, and expect a year of growth and change. And we’d LOVE you to be a part of that change.

However, part of growth always involves change. After almost 4 years here, I have decided to make a change in my life, and have resigned from The Center. I will be here through the first week in September, with some eeded vacation in August. The Board of Directors has started the transition process, which includes a search for a new Executive Director. We will update you as things progress.

The Center is an important piece in our movement for social change, and will continue to make a positive impact in our Seattle and LGBTQ communities - and with you ongoing support, it will grow even stronger. As we move forward we’ll be offering many new ways to get involved.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I have truly enjoyed working with all of you, and I cannot tell you enough how important you have been to keeping The Center open and alive! I will miss each of you, and wish you nothing but the best.

And please, make sure you come to the Volunteer Appreciation party, planned for Thursday, August 9th, tentatively from 5-8pm, location to be determined.

Thank you again for all you’ve done and will do. You are the backbone of The Center, and are appreciated!

Best,
Shannon

Shannon Thomas, MNPL
Executive Director
Queen City Community Development/
The Seattle LGBT Community Center

RSS icon Comments

1

Dan... I have to say, you are a piece of shit. Throughout the Pride season you were utterly intolerable. You did nothing but voice your negative bullshit in the press, and tear this community farther apart than it is already. Can't you let this dedicated woman leave with some dignity? She's never done anything personal to you but it seems you have a vendetta against a person who does something very worth while for this community. Where is YOUR contribution Dan? This rag of a paper? The Stranger is NOT the only paper in Seattle, but is sure is the only paper in Seattle who should be sued for slander.

Posted by Pissed off Volunteer | July 25, 2007 4:19 PM
2

How is it slander to say that someone who is leaving her job is leaving her job?

Posted by EXTC | July 25, 2007 4:30 PM
3

Dan, don't even reply to POV. Just...don't.

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 25, 2007 4:37 PM
4

I have to agree with you, "Pissed Off Volunteer". I have volunteered for The Center for the last 2 years and I’m amazed at what Shannon has accomplished there, especially considering she’s had no staff!

I know many volunteers who will be sad to see her go. She has been an incredible mentor and inspiration to many of us. She’s worked her ass off to keep The Center alive, which is more than I can say for you. Really, what have you done for our community lately? (Other than rag on the efforts of others!)

Posted by Another T-ed off Volunteer | July 25, 2007 4:39 PM
5

How, the fuck, is Dan "ragging" on her efforts here?

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 25, 2007 4:42 PM
6

I would like to answer the slander question... Dan Savage himself decided it wa s good idea to refer to Susan Benner, someone who was involved in planning, as a "douchebag" in his Slog.

As far as everything else... Dan has done nothing but rag on her efforts. Its blatent and obvious in every blog he posts. He is just a guy with power and abuses that ability to post and skew stories to fit his beliefs.

Posted by Pissed off Volunteer | July 25, 2007 4:47 PM
7

Susan Benner is not Shannon Thomas, you fucking idiot.

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 25, 2007 4:52 PM
8

Here's all I'm gonna say: When I wrote a story about pride 10 years ago, I was told that I had no right to criticize if I didn't get involved. So I got involved. Then I was told I had no right to be involved because I was, thanks to the Stranger, far too powerful.

That's when I realized that writing -- or ragging -- is participating, and that I wasn't going to be suckered anymore by people telling me that I had no right to write anything blah blah blah.

And anyone that doesn't think this paper covers queer issues -- and advocates for queer rights -- aggressively can't read, or refuses to read.

Shannon may or may not have done good things for the Center during her tenure. She did, however, do bad, crass, opportunistic things where the Seattle's pride events were concerned.

She is also, in her role as the head of the Center, a public figure, and thus her resignation from the Center isn't a private matter. We also posted Tina Podlodowski's resignation letter from Lifelong moments after she sent it out.

Posted by Dan Savage | July 25, 2007 4:52 PM
9

I did call Susan Benner a douchebag. Here's the context:

http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/04/the_pride_parade

Her comments in the Times still seem pretty douchebaggy to me.

Posted by Dan Savage | July 25, 2007 4:55 PM
10

Okay, so how is that slander?

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 25, 2007 4:57 PM
11

Oh, and I'm a bad person for calling poor Susan Benner names, says POV -- who goes on to call me a "piece of shit." Hee-haw!

Posted by Dan Savage | July 25, 2007 4:57 PM
12

That's 'slander', Dan. You should sue.

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 25, 2007 4:59 PM
13

Slander is verbal--you can't slander someone in print (that's "libel").

Posted by Amy Kate Horn | July 25, 2007 5:08 PM
14

Mr. Poe,

It must get dark with your head buried so far up Dan's ass.

Do you have any original thought or do you just swallow Dan "intellectual" jizz and think you are his friend?

Which one, cause you sound like a whiney bitch.

Dans has regularly made lame comments and undercut LGBT centers efforts at every turn for the sake of his own notoriety. This fiegning innocence rap of his is better suited to a drag queen fighting over some lipstick.

Posted by ecce homo | July 25, 2007 5:08 PM
15

Im not a "public figure" Dan, and don't have the same responsibilities as you to be PC, not that you try to anyways. So, I can say basically whatever I like.

More than anything I'm dissappointed that a paper I USED to read has laid full blame for the downfall of our gay community's Pride on one woman's shoulders. How can you back SOaP with their gigantic debt, and failure to take on their own responsibilities? How can you support them, and give away prizes at their event? While snubbing Capitol Hill's event? Why don't you be the one to step up and be a man, and go to both, make a statement, bridge the gap.

You know Dan, I used to buy your books, read your columns. Now Im just angry at you for how little regard you have for the PEOPLE involved in this. When you talk trash about the efforts the LGBT Center made you are talking trash about 200+ people who volunteer their time to try and bring our community together. Grow a heart.

OH, and also, when you copy and paste those *CONFIDENTAL* emails from Shannon Thomas your informant is breaking the law. S/he signed a confidentiality agreement when s/he became involved at the Center, and thus you are recieving priviledge information. Sure her resignation is PUBLIC knowledge, but she is reserving the right to notify her volunteers FIRST before the public, out of respect for OUR service.

Posted by Pissed off Volunteer | July 25, 2007 5:08 PM
16

We gave Queerfest and the downtown events equal billing in our Pride Guide. Actually Queerfest had better placement, as it came first, and it got pictures, full listings, etc. We didn't snub the Center's events at all.

I haven't talked trash about her efforts to lead the Center. I've talked trash of her actions over the last two years re: pride because her actions were trashy.

Posted by Dan Savage | July 25, 2007 5:15 PM
17

Oh and Mr. Poe... nothing I have to say is direct to you. Even though you seem like an uneduated baffoon. The slander comment in my first post was a generality, and not specifically related to the topic of Shannon T's resignation, but was specific to the "douchebag" comment. I knew he'd know what it was in reference to. However thanks to Amy Kate Horn we know it is actually "libel". Thanks Amy for the correction.

Posted by Pissed off Volunteer | July 25, 2007 5:16 PM
18

They make volunteers sign confidentiality agreements? What on Earth for? Is she Dick Cheney?

Seriously, I've been involved in numerous volunteer organizations, and never, never have I been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. And if I was ... I probably wouldn't volunteer for that organization.

Posted by arduous | July 25, 2007 5:16 PM
19

Susan Brenner, well know lesbian and principled non public figure could sue for a lot of money.

Dan, you slandered her. Hope your insurance company is up to date. She is NOT a public person.

You, Dan, are a very public person, known nation wide. No immunity for any name anyone wants to call you, remember Jerry Falwell and fucking his mother in the outhouse cartoon. No damages, no immunity from insults, ruled the supreme court, as a public figure.

If Susan decides to sue the owners of the Stranger, get ready for the big payoff. You did slander her.

Posted by hilda | July 25, 2007 5:17 PM
20

Ok Dan... what "trashy" actions did Shannon Thomas take in regards to Pride? Even in her emails you've so magically reproduced, nothing she's said is out right or even remotely close to what youre claiming her intentions were. Have you sat in a room with her? Have you asked her?

Posted by Pissed off Volunteer | July 25, 2007 5:19 PM
21

Stan corrected - libel cause of action in print. Thanks Amy, please spell out the law to Dan.

Posted by hilda | July 25, 2007 5:22 PM
22

@13

REALLY??!!?!!11 I had noooo idea!!!1one

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 25, 2007 5:42 PM
23

@17

You spelled uneducated and buffoon incorrectly. Dipshit.

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 25, 2007 5:44 PM
24

Wow, are the "volunteers" stupid. You too, Hilda. Libel is when you knowingly print lies, i.e. incorrect facts, about someone.

I'm no lawyer, but it seems unlikely that anyone would believe that Dan was actually arguing that Ms. Benner was a functioning douchebag. I'm also not a woman, but I don't think they make douchebags as large as a human being. Though maybe Hilda gets hers custom made.

Posted by Big Sven | July 25, 2007 6:08 PM
25

a lil law of the press, folks:

if susan benner has been mentioned in any media outlet frequently in the past few months, she IS a public figure, and thus has no grounds for a libel suit against the Stranger. and neither does Shannon Thomas. I'm quite sure the Stranger's consigliere knows chapter and verse of libel law.


again, you wacky gay folks just crack me up!

Posted by scary tyler moore | July 25, 2007 7:20 PM
26

Wow lol shut the fuck up. Dan don't reply to shit like this.

Posted by JessB | July 25, 2007 7:45 PM
27

above...
Well is IT Big or Tiny? My guess is the second, insulting little dick pig.

Posted by hilda | July 25, 2007 7:51 PM
28

See the wonderful thing about America, hilda, is that you have every right to say I have a small dick. No one would reasonably expect you to actually know the size of my penis- they realize you're just launching an ad hominem attack, so it's NOT LIBEL. Exactly like Dan and Ms. Benner.

Have a *great* day.

Posted by Big Sven | July 25, 2007 11:16 PM
29

The Queerfest folks AND and SOAP are both run by idiots! Besides the lesser known gafs, they both allowed Mark Mom Finley to anounce that he was a "CO-Founder of Gay Bingo" (they had this printed in their promotional literature and websites). Of course everyone knows this is yet another outrageous lie spewed from the warped and twisted mind of Mark mom Finley- you would think they would have checked their facts with NWAA before allowing a con-artist like Finley to say such things...

Posted by Lil'Boy Blue | July 30, 2007 3:39 PM

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