Springfield-Greene County Health Department spokesperson Aaron Schekorra announced his resignation on X, citing harassment and hostility he experienced as a person in the LGBTQ+ community employed in a public position, and inaction by the Springfield city government in addressing it.
Schekorra serves as the board president of PFLAG Southwest Missouri — a chapter of a national organization that supports, educates and advocates for LGBTQ+ people and their families, and just recently celebrated three years at the Health Department.
In addition, Schekorra also owns and operates Own Your Pride, an online shop that specializes in messaging that supports the LGBTQ+ community, which has taken off in recent months.
Schekorra said working for the health department was the best job he’d ever had, and that the decision to quit was difficult, but it was ultimately best for him.
“As I’ve posted on here before, I have received significant amounts of harassment and several threats because I am a gay man working in a visible, public position. Through that, I received so much support from my coworkers and supervisors at Health. The City? Not so much,” Schekorra wrote in a post. “When challenged to look at what policy changes could be made to help reduce the hostility that my team and I were facing, the City opted to do nothing.”
Schekorra said that he received another threat on Aug. 23 and filed a police report. While he said there were other reasons he chose to quit, the lack of response in the past was the primary one.
“What was the final straw for me was the demand that I respond to homophobia with understanding,” Schekorra said on X. “There is not a perspective in which bigotry is acceptable. There are not circumstances in which allowing harmful language to go unchecked is the right course of action.”
Schekorra mentioned in X thread about city’s involvement in Pridefest
Schekorra was mentioned several times in a recent thread on X, in which “Brother Noah” — a contributor to the Elijah Haahr Show — showed information he received from a Sunshine Law request of the Springfield-Greene County Health Department in regards to the city’s entry-level sponsorship of Pridefest. The Elijah Haahr show, hosted by former speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives from Springfield, is a conservative radio talk show on KWTO.
The information laid out by Brother Noah on X was later covered by The Lion, a publication by the Herzog Foundation, an organization promoting “Christ-centered K-12 education.”
The X posts from The Lion and Brother Noah’s threads received a significant amount of traffic, totalling tens of thousands of views.
City of Springfield spokesperson Cora Scott confirmed that Aaron Schekorra resigned from the Health Department, and said that “the City does not comment on personnel matters.”
“We wish Aaron nothing but the best in his future endeavors,” Scott said in an email to the Springfield Daily Citizen.
A spokesperson for the Health Department had a similar response to that of the city.
Schekorra said on X that he would focus on finishing out his term as the PFLAG Southwest Missouri president and running Own Your Pride, though he emphasized that it is not meant to be a full-time job.
“I think that after some time for me to relax and reset, I want to get back out there and find a way for me to continue working to make this community a great place for everyone,” Schekorra said.
Schekorra denied a request to be interviewed. Additional requests for comment from leaders in the LGBTQ+ community were not responded to by deadline.
