Las Vegas couple start greeting card company for LGBT community

It's tough to buy greeting cards for Dina Proto.

Sure, Proto has birthdays and celebrates holidays and anniversaries like everyone else.

But Proto's spouse, Dina Poist-Proto, is a woman, and that's meant lots of creative editing among card-buying family members, for example, the daughter who had to make the "Mother's" in Mother's Day plural after she couldn't find a card honoring her two moms in any conventional stationery stores.

So the two Las Vegas nurses, who married in California in 2008 and are raising four children, put together their 401(k)s and other savings to open Teazled.com, a local online retailer of cards for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered consumers. The Internet shop went live Monday.

The company's 60 greeting cards feature pictures and poems for the LGBT community, such as Mother's Day cards that recognize two-mom families and anniversary cards for two-husband households. There are coming-out cards ("This isn't a college experiment ... it's who I am"), and cards of support for couples and transgendered people who have come out to friends and family. Teazled, whose name is a takeoff on one of the couple's favorite activities, sharing tea, also sells cards celebrating traditional events such as Christmas or a new baby.

Proto and Poist-Proto wrote some of the cards, while their pastor and Proto's father created some verses as well. The partners also encouraged Poist-Proto's mother to write 20 or so cards based on feelings she shared in her journal upon learning of the couple's relationship. One of the cards reads: "No more denial, no more uncertainty, no more resistance -- only acceptance and love."

Teazled's business plan wasn't born of Proto's and Poist-Proto's personal experiences alone. The company's concept also makes good financial sense, the couple says.

Greeting cards are popular in America: 7 billion cards change hands every year nationwide. But few of those cards speak specifically to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered consumers. The handful of cards that do target LGBT buyers are either blank inside or "very, very crass," Proto said. With Census numbers showing that 8.8 million Americans live in a same-sex household, Teazled hopes to tap into a sizable market of consumers interested in tasteful, meaningful, LGBT-focused cards, the partners say.

"For us, it's about providing cards that should have been available for years already, and no one has had the passion or the compassion to do that," Proto said.

Teazled's cards sell online for $3.99 each, plus $1 for shipping and handling. The company plans to add five to 10 cards a month, and is negotiating to sell cards at gift boutiques, stationery stores and flower shops, including A Twisted Tulip, a flower shop in northwest Las Vegas.

"The girls themselves, their story was so fantastic. It hit an emotion in me," said Tamara Fleming, owner of A Twisted Tulip. "I hadn't really thought about the fact that greeting cards were so general. Once I read the messages in their cards, I just felt the cards were something I needed to have. These are just beautiful cards. I have a diverse client base, and I want everyone to have cards that reflect the emotions they want to express."

Fleming sees a substantial market for Teazled's cards, she added.

Proto said she'd like to see Teazled in stores nationwide, but it's unlikely the company will launch its own real-world chain of shops.

"We don't want to be Hallmark, with multiple brick-and-mortar stores. We have no intention of segregating the LGBT community even more," Proto said. "These cards need to be integrated into stores wherever people shop for cards, like the Targets, the Wal-Marts and the Kmarts."

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.

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Comments

Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.

1. Proud Dad Aug. 18, 2011 | 4:55 a.m. Report Abuse

   greenhorseman wrote on August 12, 2011 03:02 AM:
   "The OT punishes Homosexuality with death!"
   His comment certainly sounds like a veiled threat with the potential to incite other rabid zealots. This contributor should be censored.

2. Christopher.Smith Aug. 13, 2011 | 3:19 p.m. Report Abuse

   "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."
   Leviticus 19-18
   
   Enough said, this isn't a religion argument, more or less a personal belief. Get over it. Dina and Dina have worked for something they believed in and cared for, Same cant be said about most of you. If you don't like it, then mind your own. This grand idea of a business can do without you. and remember, Hate is fear of god, and to fear god is to hate god. I along with the rest of the LGBT community will leave the judging for god, not you closed minded conservatives. I will be purchasing multiples of these cards :) cant wait to see the new ones.

3. greenhorseman Aug. 12, 2011 | 3:02 a.m. Report Abuse

   Richierich..You are an Idiot in the name of Tolerance. God doesn't cast the sin into the lake of Fire, he casts the SINNER!! Which is where all these sodomites will end up because people like you keep telling them that God loves you sin and all, The OT punishes Homosexuality with death! The NT requires repentance, You need to READ the Bible then maybe you'll understand it. They have childrens versons if that helps you too.

4. Richie.Rich.Lv Aug. 9, 2011 | 6:36 a.m. Report Abuse

   I myself am happy to have this card company become a reality. I am tired of buying cards and having to change it for the occasion. As to the people who have chose to leave hateful and hurtful messages about this, SHAME ON YOU!!! If you so choose to live your life in hate, so be it, but DO NOT push your hate on others. You call yourself a CHRISTIAN? I do not believe that to be true, because TRUE CHRISTIANS DON"T HATE!!! God loves EVERYONE, so as Christians should do the same. Kudos to Dina and Dinda and all those who support you and all those whou buy your cards. hose of you who choose to quote what the bible says, you need to make sure you know all of what it says. Don't pick and choose what you feel you need to push on others. Stop the hate and START THE LOVE!!!

5. Shelby.Krueger-Duncan Aug. 7, 2011 | 5:57 p.m. Report Abuse

   Finding the right words to express our experience as human beings doing our best to live right in the world is never easy. Who has not chosen a card that was written by our own heart for a son or daughter? Who has not given a card that expresses our regret for harsh words spoken in anger? Who has not searched for help with words to express our weakness, sadness, anger, longing, hurt, fear, joy, love, delight? I am glad these two women are doing just that for those neighbors, friends, and family who have not had that special assistance with words for those special times. I wish there were a card that could comfort me when words reflect such ugliness toward other human beings, especially in the name of Christianity. But this company is just starting. Perhaps such a card will soon exist! I like “no more denial, no more uncertainty, no more resistance – only acceptance and love.” Maybe I’ll go with that!

6. Deb.Graham Aug. 7, 2011 | 2:48 p.m. Report Abuse

   Wow - what an awesome idea - long overdue. Congratulations and good luck to you! I look forward to future purchases on line and in my neighborhood stores.
   
   Don't you just love those folks with their Christian pretenses. EVEN GOD DOES NOT JUDGE UNTIL THE LAST DAY! Who appointed them judge and jury? What if when they face their judgment day they learn that God has a totally different interpretation of His laws!

7. TRIP143 Aug. 7, 2011 | 1:38 p.m. Report Abuse

   how dare you! all of you! grown men and woman arguing and b!tch!ng over something so beautiful! If this isnt the community you want to support then dont support it! but dont slander such beautiful courageous women because you think its wrong! so what if walmart or some other big name sells teazled cards. no one said you had to buy them! i am both shocked and disturbed at the fact that you cant be civil with one another. i mean sex toys really? instead of blind judgment why dont you look at the website for yourselves??? as ive found tasteful funny and family orientated ways to show my family i care for them just by looking for myself. Heres a question, why are there so many protesters at pride events but none at a porn convention? isnt that just as deviant or even more deviant? no ones running back to the closet, the doors have been kicked down and there here to stay. get used to it or get over it. but the hatred needs to stop...

8. chattykathy Aug. 7, 2011 | 7:50 a.m. Report Abuse

   Congratulations, Dina and Dina! I wish you nothing but the best as you launch Teazled.

9. SEPSIS Aug. 7, 2011 | 4:53 a.m. Report Abuse

   All the LGBT families I know are more disfunctional than any of the straight ones. Pretty soon we are going to have a society that is more confused than it is now by allowing this. Look at who we have as our president!!! How dumb are we?? Marraige is a religious institution that has been abominated by allowing same sex marraiges. Lets just legalize child porn. Thats where our country is headed.

10. greenhorseman Aug. 7, 2011 | 4:41 a.m. Report Abuse

    Notice one of the cards on the table in the picture shows a MAN pregnant, That is an abomination! totally Insulting and we want to accept this as normal? That picture shows just how depraved their minds are! Wake up people!

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