Lesbian journalist Victoria A. Brownworth dead at 69

Victoria A. Brownworth, a lesbian journalist who wrote for The Advocate, The Bay Area Reporter, Philadelphia Gay News, and other LGBTQ+ publications, died Thursday at age 69.

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She “had long lived with multiple sclerosis and had battled cancer for many years,” according to an obituary in the Reporter, where she was a television critic. She had recently been hospitalized in her hometown of Philadelphia.

“With an astute eye toward entertainment, Ms. Brownworth penned the B.A.R.’s Lavender Tube TV column for three decades,” the Reporter notes.

“One of the great pleasures of my editorial job of the past five years was working on Victoria's twice-monthly Lavender Tube column, which she had been writing for decades,” Reporter arts and nightlife editor Jim Provenzano said in the obit. “We'd like to volley back-and-forth emails over TV show suggestions.”

“Toward the end of her illness, she was writing her column from a hospital bed, determined not to miss any deadlines,” he added. “Her perspectives on television and other topics will be sorely missed. She was a true pioneer in journalism.”

Her last column for the Reporter, published April 29, reviewed Hacks’ most recent season and Martha Stewart’s cooking program. The article also covered Pope Francis’s death and praised his outreach to the LGBTQ+ community.

In a 2023 column carried by the Reporter, The Advocate, and other publications, she chronicled the National Organization for Women’s purge of lesbians in its early years. (NOW later became lesbian-friendly.) Other Brownworth pieces published by The Advocate dealt with author Doris Lessing, whistleblower Chelsea Manning, disability, marriage equality, and more.

At the Philadelphia Gay News, she was long part of the family, publisher Mark Segal wrote on Facebook. “She had a gift for writing,” he said. “She was fearless in her reporting and always looking for the next unique story. I remember she came to me in the 1980s and said, ‘You might not go for this, but how about a story on lesbian nuns?’ That story ended up winning numerous awards.”

She was a contributor to the Philadelphia paper's LGBTQ History Month program as well, in which several publications carried stories in October.

She also won a Lambda Literary Award in 2016 for Best Lesbian Mystery with Ordinary Mayhem.

Brownworth’s wife, the painter Maddy Gold, died of cancer in 2022.