In February, the LGBTQ+ community and its allies mourned the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary Oklahoma high school student who died after an attack in a girlsā bathroom. If it werenāt for Pittsburgh-based reporter Sue Kerr, the story would have stayed under the radar.
Kerr founded the Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents blog back in 2005 and has been covering local and national LGBTQ+ news ever since. She was first to report on the details of Benedictās death, which quickly became a national news story. Even though the last year has been one of the toughest in her life, Kerr is still doing the hard work to combine activism, journalism, storytelling, and memorializing the lives and deaths of trans victims of violence on her blog.
āWe arenāt yet equal. I live in a state with no statewide nondiscrimination protections, an active DOMA law, and no codification around parental rights,ā Kerr says. āRacial injustice, climate change, poverty, housing affordability, workplace rights, disability, and more are bound to our equality. Donāt take anything for granted and donāt leave anyone behind.ā @pghlesbian
