For Queer Mice
Lord of the Rings
ruly one of the most innovative inventions of the World Wide Web was created by a guy named Sage Weil. Instead of the generic links page many people have on their homepages to list sites with similar interests, he came up with a novel way to surf the web. What if your site was a link in a circular chain, so if you traveled around in one direction you'd eventually make it back to your site? He got some net friends together, added some HTML code and images, and the Webring was born.
It wasn't too long before the original Webring was getting way too big. Then he thought how there could be several, maybe many Rings, each with their own unique theme. Each Ring would be their own community of homepages. It would bring more visitors to all the sites in a Ring as it expanded. And it would be free to join. He added some nifty CGI programming and http://www.webring.org launched a new way to browse the web.
At each web page in a Ring, you can travel to the next page in the Ring, jump back to the page beforehand, skip the next page, jump to a random page in the Ring, or visit the homepage for that Ring. It was so easy to join a Ring or create your own that the Webring exploded. At last count there are just under 1000 Rings listed in the WebRing Index ranging from music groups, computer games, pets, TV shows, culture, and more, plus many others still being developed. Queer-themed Rings are popping up all over too, shouting "We're out! We're proud! And we know HTML!"
The largest Ring for LGBTs is the QueerRing at http://www.cs.auc.dk/~zennaro/queerring.html. Over 330 pages are linked together here, from personal home pages of gays and lesbians to queer businesses. It's always been in the top 10 most visited Rings, and it's one of the oldest too. Visit a variety of pages full of coming out stories, city gay guides, transsexual menaces, butch dykes and grrrls, bears and bis, and lots more.
Some newer generic queer Rings include the West Hollywood Ring, a collection of web pages from 100+ LGBTs who reside at the GeoCities westhollywood neighborhood, at /~toantom/wehoring.html. (GeoCities hosts free web pages, and West Hollywood is their gay cyber-ghetto. Sign up for your free page at ). Then see who's Out and Proud at http://www.calweb.com/~darkmoon/lesbigay/, a Ring for coming out pages and resources.
For a womyn's view, there are several Rings to choose from. At /westhollywood/1769/webring.html you'll find the Women Loving Women Webring. 24 sites of lesbians, dykes, Sapphos, butchies, and SassyFemmes await you. The Women's Ring 'o Webpages is just for women, straight and gay, so men stay away from /homestead/heartland/Hills/2222/ring.html. And for even more web pages of wonderful women, drop by the WebWomyn Ring at /westhollywood/4322/.
If you're looking for bears, cubs, and grizzlies, don't go to the zoo. Go to the Bear Ring at /westhollywood/2301/bearring.html. The Bear Ring has 199 sites, making it the second largest queer Ring. These pages have more fur than the Pet Ring. Next, put on your chaps and harnesses and visit the Leather Ring. Your host Piglet at the Dungeon will show you around the Leather Ring, starting with /westhollywood/3322/. Then get out your rubbers and bondage gear for the Gay S&M Ring at /westhollywood/6941/. Finally strip down at the Male Exhibitionist's Web Ring at http://www.psn.net/~aznudeboy/gaymalenude.shtml. There are only three sites so far, but I'm sure it will take off soon!
The third largest LGBT Ring is the TransGendeRing, with over 130 sites from transgendered people from all over the world. Start at http://www.echonyc.com/~degrey/LCove/tgring.html to find out more and then jump into the Ring. Their sister site provides support and information for family, friends, and spouses at the TG & CD Support Ring. All web pages with information concerning the Transgendered or Cross Dressing community are invited to join at /westhollywood/4382/index.html.
Have you ever tried to find a queer web page devoted to religion, faith, and spirituality? Look no further than /westhollywood/3528/rainbow.html and the Rainbow Spirituality Ring. An equally devoted group can be found at the Barbie Collector's Ring at /RodeoDrive/1041/ring.html. You can bet there's a few gay men in there! One of my favorite non-gay Rings has to be at http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~natecow/spel.html. Here the Bad Spellers of the World Untie! are led by their leader Nathan, the self-titled coolest guy on the plant! Since many e-mail programs don't have spellcheck, we can all simpathyze.
Check out the many Rings, join a Ring or two, or start your own! (I loved the Webrings so much I started my own Puzzle Ring at /westhollywood/2555/puzzlrng.html.) So rev up your browsers and go explore!
"For Queer Mice" appears in SLAM Magazine, the alternative bar rag for St. Louis. For more links, please visit my GAYDAR site (always under construction!). Know some good queer web sites? Please e-mail them to me! Thanks, and happy browwwsing!
Proud to be a member of Geocities West Hollywood.
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