by Jeremy Rodriguez
(Jeremy Rodriguez is the editor of Philadelphia Gay News. The following editorial appeared in the May 27, 2025, edition of the newspaper and is reprinted here with permission.)

When I first began working as a freelance writer at PGN in 2015, I always heard vaguely about the transformative work this publication has done since its inception in 1976. This included stories about lesbian nuns and a series about unhoused LGBTQ+ youth. These specific stories were always spoken about with pride amongst the staff. However, it wasn’t until 2023 — when I became editor at PGN — when I learned who was responsible for these groundbreaking stories. And that was Victoria A. Brownworth, whose final story for PGN is on the front page of this week’s paper.

I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated by Victoria when I first talked to her. She had a huge legacy behind her as an award-winning writer and who was I but her younger boss who only graduated college nine years earlier. How could she take me seriously?

It turns out she did take me seriously and she even treated me like an equal. We had many phone calls over the past two years, until her death on May 22 — though it had been a little more than a month since we last spoke due to her declining health. And now, I can’t believe I’ll never be able to speak to her again.

I still have old stories of hers I can read.

I still have old voicemails from her I can listen to.

I still have to read her 2015 horror novel, “Ordinary Mayhem” (which I ordered online just a few hours before writing this piece).

But, I’ll never be able to tell her how much I looked forward to our phone calls, where we often went off topic from work to gossip about our personal lives or to discuss TV shows (I was thinking of her while watching the second season finale of “The Last of Us” earlier this week and I wish I could’ve talked to her about it the next morning).

I’ll also never be able to tell her how much I admired her. Victoria was a talented writer who was always willing to dig deeper into stories. She broke several news stories, but she was also always willing to find angles that haven’t already been covered.

One thing that usually drives me nuts with writers is when they try to pitch a story that has already received a ton of coverage from other local and national outlets. Too often, the story they submit will just be the same story — rewritten and regurgitated — from other outlets. I never had to worry about that with Victoria.

Recent stories of Victoria’s that come to mind were about Trump’s tariffs and about the status of Philadelphia as a sanctuary city. These were two stories that received a lot of coverage by other outlets but Victoria found angles that no one else thought of and those angles were related to how these issues impacted the LGBTQ+ community. She was a great asset to the team for this reason and this is a tremendous loss.

While a lot can be said about Victoria’s talents, I don’t think enough can be said about how she would advocate for marginalized communities through her work. When pitching a story to me about a topic related to underrepresented communities, she would always explain her reasoning with just two words: “It’s important.”

Her advocacy even made an impact on me. One time, I spoke to her about how dehumanized I would feel when people at work and other settings would misgender me — and this was ironically by people in the LGBTQ+ community. After hearing me out, Victoria said, “You need to write about this.” And while it was a challenge to be vulnerable, I eventually wrote about this.

My editorial, entitled “Coming out to LGBTQ+ peers is just as challenging,” went on to win numerous awards. But the biggest award was being able to express myself. That’s something Victoria encouraged me to do, and that’s something I hope to continue doing to make her proud. If I ever struggle to put pen to paper about things that are hard, her voice will always be in my ear as a source of encouragement.

Thank you, Victoria A. Brownworth. The PGN staff and I hope to honor your legacy.

GUEST COMMENTARY
Volume 27
Issue 5