#QueerHeroes Day 30 – Us.
I began doing this series because I’m constantly in awe of our collective magnificence.
The trans drag queens of 1890s New York who started the first trans rights group in the attic of a queer brothel. The queers who formed a kickline in the faces of the riot police outside of Stonewall. The activists of ACT UP who protested and taught themselves pharmacology—as their friends were dying—until the pharmaceutical companies themselves were consulting them on the best way to get life saving drugs developed and distributed. And so many more.
The colors of the rainbow flag are rich but not nearly as rich as the vibrant, majestic tapestry of our history. We are everywhere, in every subset of every culture and every phenotype. We are timeless, existing in every era.
This is something to marvel at, but it should also be a call to action. There is so much left to do and we can’t be eternally drunk off the euphoria that comes with living in the light. Too many of us are still forced into the shadows.
There’s a wealth of lessons to learn from the people I’ve featured this month, but the most important, to me, is that any one of us has the capacity to be a queer hero. So many of the people I’ve shared this month were scoffed at for the actions that immortalize them today. Your actions may seem insignificant but, I swear to you, they’re revolutionary. Make art. Embrace each other. Do crimes. Call grown men “Mary.”
Let spitting in the face of life’s mundanity be the symphony of your existence.
I love you all, you beautiful, perfect freaks.
“The great work begins.”
Evan Brechtel 