Op-Ed: Is West Hollywood John Erickson’s Dirty Little Secret?

John Heilman, Valerie Terrigno, Steve Schulte, Alan Viterbi, Helen Albert, and thousands of LGBTQ residents and allies built this city in 1984 on the radical idea that no one should have to hide who they are. Not its residents nor the people elected to represent them. Three of the five council members were openly and proudly gay or lesbian at a time when that came with real personal and political risk. They didn’t build a political infrastructure to protect themselves. They built it so no one who followed would ever have to hide.

Apparently that memo didn’t reach West Hollywood Councilmember John Erickson.

I was pointed recently to his campaign website. I’ll be honest — I didn’t believe it at first. Not again. Not from him. Not from proud, queer, WeHo-bred John Erickson. But there it was, or should I say — there it wasn’t. Not a single reference anywhere to him being gay, queer, or part of the LGBTQ+ community. Not in the bio, not in the issues, not even in passing. You also won’t find West Hollywood presented as his political home either. The City appears exactly twice. Once buried in a boilerplate list of communities in the 24th Senate District, alongside places like Agoura Hills and Rolling Hills Estates, and the other in the name of the homelessness program, WeHo Cares. That’s it. Even the digital ads I’ve seen only say “as a mayor and councilmember” — as if our world-class city is something to be survived, or worse, hidden from. Mayor and councilmember where, John? 

This isn’t about emphasis. It’s about erasure.

This is the same man who identified as gender nonbinary on an official California Democratic Party delegate list when it was fashionable and politically convenient — even though he had publicly identified as a gay man as recently as his inauguration. The same man who spent West Hollywood taxpayer money flying to Washington D.C. for World Pride, telling the press that “West Hollywood stands proud on the world stage.” When this community was useful, when this identity was an asset, it was front and center. Now the audience is broader and it’s gone. That doesn’t read as an oversight. It reads as a decision. Now the map is bigger and it has vanished. Not misplaced. Not forgotten. Deleted.

He used West Hollywood. He used us. He built a record here, on our streets, on our dime, inside a community that handed him a platform shaped by forty years of out and proud political power. His campaign website claims he amassed a $31 million budget surplus “under his leadership as mayor.” Problem is that math ain’t mathing. Mr. Erickson wasn’t mayor when that surplus was recorded. Sepi Shyne was. The surplus during his actual mayoral term?  $13.5 million — and even then he shared some of that fiscal year with Shyne. California State Treasurer Fiona Ma repeated the same misleading claim in her endorsement, crediting the surplus to his mayoralty. When the state treasurer can’t be counted on to do the math, who exactly is checking his work?

He’s happy to take the credit. He just doesn’t want the city. He doesn’t want us.

This isn’t how it’s always been done. Paul Koretz served on this City Council for twelve years before running for State Assembly, then the Los Angeles City Council, and finally City Controller — multiple races across four decades. He led with West Hollywood every time. Jeffrey Prang announced his 2014 run for Los Angeles County Assessor as “West Hollywood City Councilmember and four-time Mayor.” His official biography still says it. Both men ran countywide and citywide. Neither felt the need to erase where they came from.

We’ve seen this playbook before. In 2022, Lindsey Horvath stripped West Hollywood and her record of LGBTQ+ advocacy from her campaign when she ran for County Supervisor. It worked. Erickson watched and he’s following the same path — only going further. Horvath downplayed a city. Erickson is erasing an identity.

The people who built this city didn’t do it so the politicians it produced could erase it on their way out the door to something bigger.

West Hollywood is not your dirty little secret. We won’t be the “roommate” you mention only when pressed. You parade your progressive credentials at every opportunity, but then pink-wash who you are and WeHo-wash where you’re from.

West Hollywood is an out and proud city that made you, handed you a record, and gave you a name.

You don’t get to keep the résumé and lose the address.