F ³ From Howard County to Los Angeles: Kevin Rector and a Message of Queer Pride

In honor of LGBTQIA+ Pride, may I recommend:

Queer people have shaped America. Why celebrating that fact protects kids, Kevin Rector, Los Angeles Times

Rector begins the piece by giving us a glimpse into his own experiences growing up gay and struggling to figure out his place in a world that provided him with no positive images for the person he was becoming. 

That is what comes to mind today when I see conservative leaders, right-wing provocateurs and even some well-meaning parents fighting vigorously against the idea that their kids — that any kids — might benefit from hearing something positive about LGBTQ+ people.

Across the country and, indeed, across California, there is a growing war over what kids can be taught about queer issues. Conservatives want to ban the mere mention of queer people in schools and forbid LGBTQ+-inclusive school curricula. They want to ban drag queens from reading to kids, ban pride flags in classrooms and ban pride merchandise in stores. They want to ban young adult books with queer characters, ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender kids and try again to ban same-sex marriage, which provides many queer kids with hope for a fulfilled future.

With the protection of children as their stated rationale, today’s most ardent conservatives have taken up as a cornerstone of their political platform the idea that our nation and its children would be a lot better off if everyone under the LGBTQ+ umbrella were shoved collectively back into the closet, so that the rest of the country might move forward pretending we don’t exist.

Rector’s piece is a part of a larger series by the LA Times called “Our Queerest Century.” 

LGBTQ+ people have made tremendous contributions to this country. They cannot be erased.

As you may already know, Kevin Rector began his journalism career in Maryland. He’s a graduate of UMD and went on to cover local issues for the Howard County Times. After that he spent eight years with the Baltimore Sun and was part of a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. He’s been writing for the LA Times since the Spring of 2020: first covering the LAPD, and now legal affairs.

I spent yesterday afternoon combing through Twitter looking through Rector's old stories. A sampling of his articles includes the kerfuffle over banning the sale of sugary drinks on County property, zoning issues in Elkridge, increasing calls for Sheriff Fitzgerald to resign, local government strategy for Hurricane Irene, and both Ellicott City floods.

I was looking for something in particular. Twitter didn’t help. A trip to Google provided me with just enough material to share some screenshots with you:

Screenshot from Technical.ly

Screenshots from Baltimore Sun
 

In May of 2013, The Baltimore Sun announced the creation of a blog called “Gay Matters,” to be written by Michael Gold and Kevin Rector. P In 2013 this kind of coverage of LGBTQIA+ issues in mainstream media was long overdue and yet it somehow made the Sun looking “daring.” Had they finally left their “so last century” mindset? I was really excited to see this happening. I looked forward to reading Gay Matters and learning from it, sharing it. 

And then, almost as soon as it had begun, “Gay Matters” disappeared. I’ve never known what happened there but it certainly looks like someone pulled the plug on it. My assumption (yes I know what they say) is that the Sun didn’t have the courage of its convictions. 

What a lost opportunity. 

Now it’s 2024. Michael Gold is a politics correspondent for the New York Times, Kevin Rector covers legal affairs for the LA Times, and people are still trying to make queer people invisible. In many ways it feels more violent and more frightening than it was in 2013.

As Rector writes:

With the protection of children as their stated rationale, today’s most ardent conservatives have taken up as a cornerstone of their political platform the idea that our nation and its children would be a lot better off if everyone under the LGBTQ+ umbrella were shoved collectively back into the closet, so that the rest of the country might move forward pretending we don’t exist.

He continues;

But we do exist. And thank goodness.

LGBTQ+ people have helped define this country. Our contributions to the nation’s cultural identity are indelible.

Yes, thank goodness. 

A shoutout to Kevin Rector and his persistent refusal to be invisible despite the current wave of haters that would like nothing more than to see him sit down and shut up.

Village Green/Town² Comments