Expreszo

Expreszo is the only magazine for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in the Netherlands and Flanders. The magazine is published bi-monthly.

The name Expreszo does not refer to espresso. It is a combination of two Dutch words, Expres and Zo which would roughly be translated into English as On Purpose Like This. The name refers to the questions gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youths are confronted with when they decide to be open about their sexual identity. The Expreszo staff claim that there is no need for questions since there already are answers, saying "we're young, we're queer and there is nothing bad about that". This positive attitude from some gay and lesbian youths needed to be shared with other members of their generation who still struggled with their sexual identity.

The magazine Expreszo claims to give the readers the role models that they lack in daily life. The editors also write about serious issues. Coming out of the closet is a continuing story — and unfortunately HIV/AIDS is too. Besides that, while legal emancipation has come to a good ending in civil marriage and adoption rights for gays and lesbians in the Netherlands (2001) and Belgium (2003) and things have changed in society, intolerance from other (religious) minority groups towards gays and lesbians is still a big issue in the Netherlands.

Expreszo ran a poster campaign (Aisha is Cool / Ahmed is Cool, 2004) with kissing Muslim boys and girls that got a lot of media attention.

In order to get attention for the position of gay youth in highschools Expreszo (in co-operation with COC Netherlands) ran a project PinkQuest, resulting in a magazine Put da Cool back into School, distributed in most high schools in the country. Dutch MPs asked questions about the publication, which was co-funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, since a lot of "black" and Christian schools refused to hand out the magazine to their students.

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Wikipedia