Dr. Ken Schneck, editor of The Buckeye Flame, joins The Gaily Show on the second Wednesday of every month to share the latest award-winning reporting from Ohio’s LGBTQ+ newsroom.
“We are relentlessly and predictably and obnoxiously on brand, and our brand is LGBTQ+ Ohio,” Schneck said. “The stories that appear on our site are only about LGBTQ+ Ohio.” Article continues below.
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From ‘A’ to ‘Pending’ to ‘B’: The Dr. Amy Acton Disaster
Schneck described Dr. Acton, who ran unopposed for the Democratic party nomination for Governor, as a novice. She hasn’t held any elected office. Under Republican Governor Mike DeWine, she previously served as the Director of Ohio’s Department of Health.
When it issued its candidate endorsements earlier this year, the statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Equality Ohio gave her an “A” grade.
That changed, Schneck said, when Acton came out in favor of banning trans athletes — siding with the MAGA majority on the Supreme Court.
Schneck said, “There were many opportunities for her to walk that back.”
Equality Ohio changed Acton’s candidate score from “A” to “Pending,” as they reached out to her to understand her position. According to Schneck, the organization said in a statement, “This is going to stay ‘pending’ until and unless she does something significant to support Ohio’s trans community.”
But her campaign held what could only be called a disastrous meeting with LGBTQ leaders in Ohio. According to our own reporting here at The Gaily Show and to The Buckeye Flame, leaders of the Democratic Party’s LGBTQ caucus were either blocked from attending the virtual meeting or kicked off the call. Acton refused to attend the meeting and no campaign staff offered an explanation for her position.
But last last week, Equality Ohio upgraded Acton’s candidate score from “Pending” to a “B.” Schneck said that Equality Ohio was clear that Acton has done little to support trans Ohioans. Equality Ohio rationalized the situation by stating the “B” reflects her overall record which includes past statements of support.
“If you’re looking at it from she had an ‘A’ and now she has a ‘B,’ sure, that’s a downgrade,” Schneck said. “If you’re looking at it from she had ‘Pending’ to a ‘B,’ well, as a college professor, a ‘B’ isn’t so bad.”
The reaction to Equality Ohio’s decision was swift and angry. The Advocate republished The Buckeye Flame’s reporting on their homepage.
The most vocal critic was Ari Childrey, an out transgender candidate who is running for the Ohio legislature. A history-making candidate in her own right, she also holds a leadership position within Ohio’s Democratic Party. Equality Ohio graded her with an “A+.”
“I am returning that ‘A+’,” Schneck quoted Childrey as saying. “If this is what a ‘B’ is, then I don’t want the ‘A+.'”
Schneck pushed back against Democrats who say MAGA painted Acton into a corner on the issue.
“I think there’s a really important case to be made here for if we normalize that you can get a ‘B’ in misgendering trans individuals, then others can do that as well,” he said. Schneck also highlighted that the national LGBTQ rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), has advocated for the national Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which had completely excluded transgender people.
Because of their reporting, Schneck said that The Buckeye Flame, Ohio’s only LGBTQ newsroom, has come under fire from both MAGA and Democrats. Staff have received emails from Democrats saying to “just shut the hell up until after the election.”
For his podcast, “This News Is So Gay,” Schneck responded by hosting Dr. Kaila Adia Story, author of “The Rainbow Ain’t NEver Been Enuf: On the Myth of LGBTQ+ Solidarity.”
“We can talk about Democrat versus Republican easily,” he said. “I want to talk about what that word community means in LGBTQ+ community.”
Ohio’s LGBTQ population grows by 11%
Acton’s attack on the trans community comes at a time when the Buckeye state’s LGBTQ population has grown by a significant 11% to 883,000 people.
That figure is based on Schneck’s research and reporting into new data from the Human Rights Campaign.
“My PhD is in qualitative research, not quantitative research,” he said. “But by my estimation, over 883,000, that’s a lot more than the previous estimate,” representing a 325,000-person swing.
The data however, according to Schneck, reflects not a change in population, but a change in the willingness of LGBTQ people to disclose their identity.
He said that earlier data came from researchers conducting telephone surveys. The most recent data came from a private self-administered U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.
“I think it’s just people are being more honest,” Schneck said. “People are being more open about it.”
He said that based on HRC’s reporting, Ohio is one of 40 states where at least 10% of adults identify as LGBTQ. And this changes the political calculus for politicians.
“You can’t just say, ‘I’m just going to push the LGBTQ+ community off to the side,'” he said. “If they’re 10%, that would be a huge mistake.”
Students Archive Akron’s LGBTQ History
As more people identify as LGBTQ in Ohio, students at the University of Akron recently created an archive of that city’s queer history.
According to Schneck, the project was part of an “[Un]Class” taught by Tony Pankuch who is “the education and outreach coordinator at the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, a museum and archive at the University of Akron.”
“The students determined the direction of the class,” he said. The students spent a semester understanding how history is archived, and by whom, and how to find it.
Students created a website for their findings and then presented it at the local gay bar, Cocktails Akron. The feedback, Schneck said, was overwhelming.
The Buckeye Flame is a scrappy queer nonprofit newsroom with a mission of amplifying the voices of LGBTQ+ Ohioans to support community and civic empowerment through the creation of engaging content that chronicles our triumphs, struggles, and lived experiences. Visit thebuckeyeflame.com and be sure to sign up for their weekly digest: “The Spark.”
