Chron Reporter Gwen Howerton Stays Rooted in the State She Calls Home

After growing up and finding community in Texas, Chron culture reporter Gwen Howerton has no plans on leaving, despite the growing anti-trans legislature sweeping the state.

“I was born and raised here—this is my home, and there are a lot of great things to love about Texas,” Howerton says. “I want to leave on my own terms, not because some people don’t like who I am.”

Originally from Fort Worth, Howerton, 25, moved to College Station early in their childhood and lived there until graduating from Texas A&M University. It was here where Howerton found community and began sharing their trans identity with others.

“I suddenly had all of this freedom to be myself, and I met a really supportive group of people,” Howerton explains. “I decided that I was never going to be quiet about who I am and what I stand for.”

While a student, Howerton was a DJ for Texas A&M’s college radio station where she discussed politics and other topics. That enabled Howerton to connect with their hometown and cultivate a passion for news media. “I feel like that experience showed me a lot of cool queer people in places that you don’t expect.”

Although Howerton had only been to Houston on occasion for Houston Pride, she had the opportunity to relocate to Bayou City after receiving a work opportunity with Chron, a digital newsroom that branched off of the Houston Chronicle in 2012. Originally working in non-editorial roles, Howerton eventually pitched the idea of writing for Chron last summer when Texas announced it would stop allowing trans individuals to update their driver’s license gender markers.

“I went to our culture editor, Abigail Rosenthal, and expressed that the story was really meaningful to me because I had just gotten my documentation changed not that long before,” Howerton recalls. “I felt like there wasn’t a lot of coverage on what people were going through and what it was going to impact, so I wrote a story on it and that made me realize that I wanted to be a reporter who focuses on queer community in Texas.”

The story Howerton wrote on the end of gender marker alterations for trans individuals became the foundational piece that pushed her to continue writing stories. Since then, Howerton has regularly contributed to Chron, and in June of this year, she was promoted to become a full-time culture reporter.

In that new reporting position, Howerton has explored what it means to be both a contributor to the media and a trans woman. She notes that there are tensions that exist when people encounter trans journalists and question the relation between their identity and the stories they are writing.

“I think there are a lot of people who get away with injecting their own framing into a story—nobody bats an eye when it’s a man doing it,” Howerton notes. “However, if a trans or queer person wants to write a story about trans people that isn’t doom and gloom, we have to fight for that sometimes because there’s an extra step of having to prove why the story matters.”

Howerton’s position as a trans woman working within media is fairly unique. She notes that there are many qualified trans writers, reporters, editors, and photographers who are not able to establish a career in journalism. The ones that do make it are often labeled as activists in a way that flattens the perception of their work.

“Contrary to what a lot of people think, I’m not trying to push an agenda,” Howerton explains. “I’m trying to tell a good story, and that means treating the people I talk to with respect, asking difficult questions, and navigating the push and pull of creating a piece of media with multiple people in an unbiased way.”

In spite of these challenges, Howerton expresses pride in being a journalist from Texas. She says Houston, in particular, has proven to be more than just a city with incredible cuisine. “I can see there is so much queer history here and so many people making an impact and building a really great community.”

“I have always loved an underdog, and I think Houston feels like an underdog in a lot of ways,” Howerton observes. “Realistically, it shouldn’t exist from an urban planning or environmental point of view, but I think it persists in spite of itself. It’s a place where everybody has an opportunity to be somebody, and I think it’s going to keep being that.”

In addition to pursuing an interest in film photography, Howerton will contine to find interesting stories about LGBTQ communities in Houston and throughout Texas. “I want to see my community humanized in media. I’ve found a lot of great people here, and I think that’s what Houston has and will continue to offer.”

To keep up with Gwen, follow her on social media at @kissphoria. View her photography at @gwenimage on Instagram, and read her news stories on Chron.com.