Brenna Reynolds felt lucky to grow up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, surrounded by both a community and family accepting and affirming her bisexuality.
Now, she’s running for re-election as an out council-at-large member in the Toledo suburb of Rossford, in neighboring Wood County, Ohio. Reynolds said her privilege as a cis woman married to a man makes it more important for her to be vocal, as she doesn’t “look like” what people expect a bisexual woman to be.
“There are so many ways to be part of the LGBTQ+ community,” she said. “I’m just a small piece of that, and the privilege that I do have, I can use as a foundation for speaking out for folks with less privilege.”
Volunteering in Ann Arbor ‘ignited something’
Reynolds remembered not having a lot of money when she was a kid. Her family couldn’t afford to send her to a summer camp, so instead she joined the local YMCA’s Youth Volunteer Corps. Kids painted low-income housing, picked up litter, made meals that would be handed out to feed insecure residents, and so on.
Reynolds “completely fell in love with it” and it “ignited something” in her, she said. She stayed with the Youth Volunteer Corps throughout high school and became a leader to help get more kids involved.
“I always liked the idea of being useful and just helping out whenever I could,” she said. “It felt that’s like what I was supposed to be doing.”
From there, Reynolds worked as a childcare support worker at a domestic violence shelter for women and got her degree in psychology to work more with kids.
She moved to Rossford in 2016, taking a job as a suicide prevention consultant at the Children’s Resource Center in Bowling Green, Ohio. After witnessing an incident with a Rossford Schools district employee over alleged inappropriate behavior, she started to get more involved.
“I realized just how much I loved the idea of being a part of all of that with the School Board, planning and shaping educational policy,” Reynolds said.
She ran for the School Board in 2019, but lost the race. Today, she thinks it’s “the best thing that ever happened” to her. She fell in love with the community while on the campaign trail, and it “opened a lot of doors.”
A bridge between residents and City Council
In 2021, Reynolds ran for Rossford City Council and won a seat as a council-at-large member.
While on the council, she has served on the City Facilities, Parks & Marina Committee and the Recreation Committee, increasing access through inclusive play equipment and better amenities. She wants to continue that work through her next term, while also continuing to develop downtown Rossford.
She sees herself as a bridge between residents and the government. She holds “Quarterly Community Conversations” where people can come and chat about what’s on their mind, what Reynolds can do for them and how they “can make Rossford better together.”
“It’s very easy for folks to feel disconnected from their local government, and it’s very easy to feel powerless and like you don’t have the power to change anything,” she said. “I really want to encourage the mindset in Rossford that we can change things – it’s very doable, but we have to do it together.”
Rossford’s LGBTQ+ climate
Reynolds also wants to involve council in social issues that they can all support, and work on a future LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination ordinance “particularly with the political climate right now.”
“I think folks are nervous,” Reynolds said. “[LGBTQ+ people have] had to fight so much harder for just equal rights – not better rights, but equal and literally just being treated like a human being.”
Though Rossford has small-town vibes with only 6,299 residents, Reynolds said she thinks the community is more open-minded than stereotypes would leave someone to believe.
But that doesn’t mean she thinks the city should shy away from visibility.
“When you don’t talk about things, it feels like everything is in the shadows and it’s still kind of taboo,” Reynolds said.
However, she thinks the town’s LGBTQ+ community should be more visible. Most Rossford residents will “gravitate towards the bigger cities” nearby, like Bowling Green and Toledo, where Pride celebrations are prevalent.
“I think that’s great and you never want to duplicate efforts, but I also think it’s important for Rossford to have a little bit more representation of its diversity, because I do think we have diversity here,” Reynolds said.
“We should be doing everything we can, to the extent that we can, to make sure that folks feel like if they come here to visit or they come here to live, they will be safe [and] accepted.” 🔥
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