Beverly Kearney-Ybarra, longtime Sacramento LGBTQ rights advocate, dies at 49

Beverly Kearney-Ybarra was the last person you’d expect to back down.

When LGBTQ kids were being bullied at school, she was known to stand up for them. If a protest needed to be organized, she was there.

The Antelope resident, known for her strides in advocacy for the LGBTQ community in the Sacramento area, died May 20 due to a ruptured brain aneurysm.

Her death sent a shock wave through many in the Sacramento LGBTQ community who were familiar with her contributions in Sacramento and beyond. Family and friends said those won’t soon be forgotten.

“She was much more of the social butterfly, the advocate in the relationship for sure,” said her wife, Renee Ybarra. The two met around a decade ago and tied the knot officially back in 2020.

She grew accustomed to seeing Kearney-Ybarra jump into action every time a young LGBTQ person needed help.

“She became that support, which was phenomenal ... she was such a large voice and a large presence,” Ybarra said.

Born in Tachikawa, Japan, Kearney-Ybarra went on to spend six years in Italy before moving to Dixon where she spent much of her childhood. She soon earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work at Sacramento State and later spent more than 20 years with Sacramento County Child Protective Services and its parent Department of Child, Family and Adult Services.

There, she helped found the LGBTQ+ caucus for county social work and initiated inclusivity trainings for all Sacramento County CPS staff.

That work was deeply important to her, Ybarra said. It took the form of getting the correct verbiage and terminology for staff or helping them understand the struggles LGBTQ youth might be facing, particularly those she supported as a social worker. Their areas of work sometimes overlapped; at one point, Kearney-Ybarra even came into a group home Ybarra was working at to share her advice.

“She was happy to offer that training to my company at the time and educate them as well what she was doing for the county,” Ybarra said. “She was a lover of all things.”

She was no stranger to making change in a variety ways, even making national news outlets before for her work, such as when she helped organize a “kiss in.” That was back in 2013, after a Roseville mall security guard asked a gay couple seen kissing to leave.

She also helped organized the first ever June Pride event in Dixon back in 2018.

Her friend of more than 10 years, Sara Floor, has always admired that fight.

“She took it upon herself to say, ‘Hey, this isn’t right, we should have equal rights, people should be able to, you know, hold hands with whoever they want or kiss whoever they want,” Floor said. “I learned a lot from her about what it is to to stand up for your beliefs and to be unabashedly committed to standing up for other people.”

Ybarra, who also worked with children in group homes, ended up taking care of multiple kids with Kearney-Ybarra, some of whom they now call their own. Kearney-Ybarra kept her circle tight, Ybarra said, but she was loving and accepting. In 2013, the same year as the “kiss-in,” she founded the organization “Love is Love Movement.” The organization aims to support LGBTQ+ people and has put on social media campaigns, protests and rallies.

A few months before passing away, she left her career working with Sacramento government officials to be the Northern California director for the Family Network adoption agency.

That was her dream in some ways, Ybarra said. Kearney-Ybarra’s work with the county was often heavy and difficult, and she had the chance to “create families” in the new position she had taken.

“The fact that she was such a large voice and a large presence, to be able to offer that support,” Ybarra said. “Those are going to be some really large shoes to fill. It’s gonna take more than a few people to do so.”

The Sacramento County CPS LGBTQ Specialist Pride Award has been renamed the Beverly Kearney-Ybarra Pride Award in recognition of her work advocating for gay foster youth.

A public celebration of her life will be held July 28 on 11 a.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1430 J St., Sacramento.

This story was originally published July 14, 2023 at 5:00 AM.