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Incredibly, it's 15 years, to the day, since I first started work on @PinkNews. It's been a labour of love! We will celebrate later in the year, but I wanted to share a few memories about the journey from zero to tens of millions of users plus some of our achievements (1/22)
I founded @PinkNews because I was unhappy with the way that gay media was run (the term LGBT+ didn't really exist). Back then all of the media was effectively subsidised by porn and escort ads and news wasn't well covered at all (2/22)
There had been some proper newspapers: the Gay News, Capital Gay and the Pink Paper. But in 2005, just Pink Paper survived but was published monthly as a magazine and didn't cover enough news and didn't have a proper website (3/22)
I wanted @PinkNews to be different. No sex ads, constantly updating and with an accessible archive online. I registered the name and put a basic website online in July and formed the company in December of 2005, when we hired our first employee (4/22)
Our first foray into politics was a ground-breaking interview with Francis Maude, then Chair of the Conservatives, saying the party's previous stance was morally wrong. It was the first @PinkNews mention by the BBC (5/22)
Beyond politics, @PinkNews was 'put on the map' by publishing this story, which would ultimately lead to Ashley Cole reaching a settlement with the News of the World. Incidentally, my co-author and first PN employee @marcshoffman would later become my brother-in-law! (6/22)
2006 was a special year: @SimonHughes came out as bisexual on @PinkNews and we won plaudits for our coverage of Ruth Kelly being appointed 'Minister for Gays', despite always abstaining on equality votes. (7/22)
It was also 2006, when we briefly tried and failed to be in print with 'The PinkNews'. It was also when I was recruited to join @Channel4News as a correspondent and @PinkNews would be a side-project for the next six years. (8/22)
In 2008, I was in California for the election of @BarackObama and Prop 8, the voter initiative to ban same-sex marriage in the state. When Prop 8 was passed, and I attended vigils, I became convinced that I needed to use @PinkNews to fight for same-sex marriage in the UK (9/22)
This interview with the then @stonewalluk CEO Ben Summerskill, convinced us that we would need to use the power of the @PinkNews audience to directly call for marriage equality from our political leaders as Stonewall didn't look like it would under Ben's leadership (10/22)
We got @PinkNews readers to send in Qs. @nick_clegg was first and backed equal marriage. @David_Cameron said he was "open" to it. Gordon Brown didn't back it, but @Ed_Miliband did during the Labour leadership election that followed (11/22)
When my friend @lfeatherstone became Minister for Equalities under @theresa_may in the Home Office, she was able to use these words to @PinkNews to help boost her case for the Coalition backing equal marriage. She documented this in her definitive book 'Equal Ever After' (12/22)
At the same time, we at @PinkNews worked on getting @stonewalluk to actually back equal marriage. We interviewed co-founder @IanMcKellen and fellow co-founder @mcashmanCBE wrote this powerful article begging Stonewall to change its position(13/22)
While @Stonewalluk eventually did come on board, I felt that the campaign was not positive enough. So I co-founded @Out4Marriage with @Mike_Shapes + lots of amazing campaigners (too many to list). The first video was made by my Grandparents. (14/22)
When same-sex marriage eventually happened, the only words from @David_Cameron to mark the occasion were in his article for @PinkNews. @DrAnthonyJames & I spent the day with @lfeatherstone going to two of the first weddings. She'd later be the witness at our own marriage (15/22)
In 2014 @PinkNews held the first #PinkNewsAwards at Speaker's House in Parliament. Our team had grown to about 5 people, ironically then based in the old Pink Paper office. (16/22)
2015 was the first year that the majority of the @PinkNews audience was in the US and we grew hugely off the back of Facebook. We held a 10th birthday party & #PinkNewsAwards at the Foreign Office and @David_Cameron recorded this message (17/22)
In 2017, to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in E&W, we published articles by every living British PM. It's also when @theresa_may made this ground-breaking speech on #transrights at the #PinkNewsAwards (18/22)
2018 was a year of change: @PinkNews grew a lot: We secured a grant from @Google to help us build @PinkNewsAction. We launched on @Snapchat, which has massively fueled our growth. @PinkNews grew up. After all the years of campaigning @DrAnthonyJames & I got married 
(19/22)
(19/22)
By the end of last year, we had grown the @PinkNews team hugely, better representing our community in all its diversity. I wrote about what had been achieved 2010-2019 in this post on Medium. (20/22) https://medium.com/@benjamincohen/how-the-2010s-changed-pinknews-lgbt-rights-and-my-life-%EF%B8%8F-2f0a27e6feda?source=friends_link&sk=ffd34ec93c4c4676644ed0e66c80c2ea12
This year has been pretty extraordinary. We're working from home, but still growing. Three new full-time @PinkNews team members have started since March plus contractors & more to come. We've gone live with a new iOS entirely developed in lockdown (21/22) https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/pinknews-lesbian-gay-bi-trans-news/id377964635
Finally, we have soft-launched @MyPinkNews, where we ask our loyal users to fund our investigative journalism, get special access to features & services. If you value what we've done over the past 15 years, now is the time to support @PinkNews (ENDS) https://www.pinknews.co.uk/mypinknews/
