A Love Letter to the Georgia Voice

While waiting for an order at Woody’s CheeseSteaks recently, I had time to chat with an old friend. A fresh stack of the venerable LGBTQ+ newspaper The Voice of Georgia had just arrived at the counter. So, as a symphony of steak and onions sizzled in the background, I opened the pages of GaVo to learn about a 3 a.m. gun attack on Midtown’s rainbow crosswalks, the 10th anniversary of clothing store Barking Leather, and how Atlanta Falcons cheerleader Dante Sanders is helping to erase gender stereotypes in sports.

In 2024, as the threat of a new anti-trans bill looms and a so-called “religious freedom” bill returns from the dead after eight years—like a legislative Freddy Krueger, seething beneath the Gold Dome—the reporting of the biweekly Premier Media Source for LGBTQ Georgia remains as vital and necessary as ever.

Holding the printed issue in my hands reminded me of my first stories published in this city, more than 30 years ago. As a young, newly-come-out contributor, covering the city’s queer community was both an inspiring history lesson and a reassurance that, as a journalist, I didn’t have to hide my sexual orientation. At the time, the independent LGBTQ+ weekly newspaper was called Voices of the Southlaunched by Christina Cash in 1988. And we had a lot to say. AIDS was decimating Atlanta, the gay mecca of the South. Cheryl Summerville had just been fired from Cracker Barrel for coming out as a lesbian. Activists Pat Hussain and Jon-Ivan Weaver were trying to convince the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) to pull its volleyball competition from Cobb County, where commissioners had passed an anti-gay resolution.

I was just a rookie gay journalist, but Cash, at the time SoVoThe editor of , has entrusted me with stories of great importance, regularly pushing me out of my comfort zone, both journalistically and personally. In a two-part series, I explored the well-being of national and local gay rights groups. I interviewed young sex workers getting into cars with strangers on Cypress Street about the risks of contracting HIV. And, perhaps most terrifyingly, I was assigned to interview iconic drag performer Charlie Brown in the Backstreet dressing room about accusations of misogyny from local feminist groups.

I brought these invaluable experiences and community sources to my next role, as a journalist at The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionwhere I remained for the next 16 years. Like my AJC My colleague Celestine Sibley later taught me, “Things can change through reporting.” On July 29, 1994, ACOG announced it was moving the preliminary volleyball matches for the 1996 Summer Olympics out of Cobb County. Thanks to the development of revolutionary new treatments, HIV is no longer a death sentence. And Cracker Barrel, a company that once required all its employees to “exhibit normal heterosexual values,” now celebrates Pride every June.

Thanks to his editorial advice to SoVo And GaVolaunched in 2010, Chris Cash taught me and others the importance of bringing our authentic selves to our reporting and the inherent value of queer people covering our own communities. Along with the essential coverage of the LGBTQ+ community it has provided for 35 years, this is the true legacy of The Voice.

Richard L. Eldredge is a Atlanta magazine editorial contributor and founding editor-in-chief of Eldredge ATL.

This article appears in our July 2024 issue.

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