Mayor Cherelle Parker appoints Tyrell Brown as head of Philadelphia’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Friday named nonprofit leader Tyrell Brown as the new director of the city’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs, a post likely to put Brown in the spotlight in the coming years due to President Donald Trump’s attacks on communities the office serves.

“I’m ready to do this work with our community, for our community, to make our community safer and more prosperous and more equitable,” Brown said at a City Hall news conference in which Parker announced his appointment alongside those of six other senior administration officials.

The office, which Philly voters in 2015 added to the city Home Rule Charter, works with city agencies to “improve LGBTQ+ access to services” and develops policies “regarding civil rights issues affecting LGBTQ+ people,” according to its website.

For the past two years, Brown has served as executive director of Galaei, a Philadelphia-based “Queer, Trans, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and People of Color radical social justice organization serving the Latine/a/o/x community while widening our embrace,” according to its mission statement.

Brown, who goes by Ty and ran unsuccessfully for state representative in 2022, has ties to the progressive wing of Democratic politics, which has been urging the party establishment to take a more aggressive approach to Trump. But on Friday, neither Brown nor Parker mentioned the president by name, which is in keeping with Parker’s conflict-avoidant approach to federal politics since Trump returned to the White House.

» READ MORE: Philly Mayor Cherelle L. Parker is among the Democrats trying to coexist with Trump

Trump this year has reversed an executive order designed to protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination and has attempted to ban transgender people from serving in the military, among other actions.

“We all know that the environment we currently are living in right now has been a bit challenging and uncertain,” Parker said Friday. “And as much as I have committed to the people of Philadelphia that I will remain laser-focused on the agenda that they elected me to deliver ... I believe it is also equally important to safeguard the rights of every Philadelphian, regardless of their race, class, socioeconomic status, zip code, religion, sexual orientation or identity, and our Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs is central to that work.”

Brown is the first person to hold the role on a permanent basis since Celena Morrison, who was appointed in 2020 by former Mayor Jim Kenney, stepped down late last year. Morrison, who was the first transgender person to hold the post, made national headlines in 2024 after being detained by Pennsylvania State Police during a contentious traffic stop that Parker described as “very concerning.”

During the 2023 mayoral race, Brown supported former City Councilmember Helen Gym, a progressive stalwart, and criticized the more moderate Parker, who went on to beat Gym in the Democratic primary before cruising to victory in November.

Brown, who said they have “friends across the political spectrum,” said it was a credit to Parker that she looked past their history in the mayor’s race.

“It just speaks to her vision and her drive to create a city that’s more diverse,” said Brown, whose yearly salary is $110,000. “I’m not a diversity hire just because I’m Black and nonbinary. I also have differences of opinion and political opinions. It speaks to her, her powers to really bring the best people together to serve the city.”

Parker, who took office in January 2024, has been admittedly slow to fill out the top ranks of her administration, and some key roles still lack permanent appointees, including the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility, and the Office of Immigrant Affairs, which has lacked a permanent leader since Amy Eusebio resigned in January shortly after Trump took office.

“As I’ve noted before, we will not be rushed in this process,” Parker said. “I want to make sure that we get the best person for every position in our administration, and that takes time.”

The appointments Parker announced Friday include two new leaders of departments that provide core functions for city government as well as several new positions created by Parker.

Ronald L. Hovey will be the city’s new procurement commissioner, overseeing city purchasing and contracts. Hovey previously held senior procurement roles at NJ Transit and Amtrak. Hovey’s salary is $206,000.

City government veteran Joseph Brasky will continue serving as public property commissioner, which he had been doing in an interim capacity. Brasky will make $195,000 per year.

Patricia Wellenbach will be the administration’s chief strategy and partnership officer, a role that Parker said will be key to developing partnerships with the philanthropic community to aid administration priorities like the mayor’s goal of building or preserving 30,000 units of housing. Wellenbach, whose city salary will be $196,000, was the president and CEO of the Please Touch Museum in Fairmount Park and serves as board chair for Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health.

“I believe there is a solution to every problem,” Wellenbach said. “I believe in a mayor who’s looking for sustainable solutions, not transformative, and I hope to bring my capacity as a convener and a collaborator to create the synergy between philanthropic, civic, nonprofit communities, not just in Philadelphia but larger. We’ve got to prove it at home first before you go outside and have Philadelphia be a model for what you can achieve in incremental ways when the vision is clear.”

Parker tapped Andy Toy to lead an effort to tackle racial bias in home appraisals as the director of the Home Appraisal Equity Program in the Department of Planning and Development. Toy was previously the policy director for the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations. Toy’s salary is $112,000.

Nadir Jones will serve as the director of business impact and supplier diversity, a newly created position in the Office of Business Impact and Economic Advancement. Jones, who was previously the diversity sourcing manager at the commercial real estate firm CBRE Group, will be paid $182,000 per year.

Robin M. Torrence will serve as director of Pan-Hellenic and HBCU engagement in the mayor’s Office of Neighborhood and Community Engagement. Torrence, who was previously a Philly public schoolteacher, most recently worked as a community school coordinator in the mayor’s Office of Education. Torrence will make $90,000.

Engaging with historically Black colleges and universities as well as Black fraternities and sororities is a priority for Parker, who is a member of Delta Sigma Theta and holds an undergraduate degree from Lincoln University.

“These organizations that we refer to as the ‘divine nine’ in the city of Philadelphia play such an important role in providing access to higher educational opportunities and services,” Parker said, referring to the nine organizations that make up the National Pan-Hellenic Council. “Our hope is that all of those Pan-Hel member organizations and individual members along with HBCU alum — that we can harness that activity here in the city of Philadelphia.”