VIDEO: The Baltimore City Fire Department, in an effort to increase diversity and equity within the agency, named its first LGBTQIA+ liaison, and some in the community are applauding the move.
Baltimore City Fire Department paramedic Kyle Lovell is the department's first LGBTQIA+ liaison. He's a five-year-veteran of the department and a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
"I love serving this community and I love helping people," Lovell said.
The fire department has done much leg work to get to this point behind the scenes, starting with creating all-gender restrooms in the fire stations, and all members of the department received LGBTQIA+ awareness training, which will be ongoing.
"Now we have an avenue to improve communication efforts, improve our interactions and improve our working relationships with LGBTQ members and with those in our community," Lovell said.