Sylvie Rosokoff
Storytellers
Casey McQuiston
Meet one of the artists, disruptors, educators, groundbreakers, innovators, and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people.
Amazon Prime Video’s delicious gay romantic comedy Red, White & Royal Blue took the world by storm when it premiered this summer. But before it was a streaming juggernaut, it was the brainchild of nonbinary bisexual author Casey McQuiston.
The best-selling romance novel is a perfect example of how LGBTQ+ representation doesn’t always have to come at the cost of outing, homophobia, transphobia, pain, and/or misery. In fact, RWRB’s unapologetically sexy, romantic, hilarious, and joyous themes are what made it a powerhouse to begin with. And it’s not lost on McQuiston that one of their biggest accomplishments of the year, they feel, is getting to learn that “queer triumph doesn’t always require a struggle.”
“It’s OK if I spend a week just writing about people like me making out with each other in different fantastical settings, and it’s OK if my triumph of the day is just making breakfast,” they say. “Sometimes simple pleasures are defiant on their own.”
And RWRB is, indeed, a simple pleasure for so many of their fans in the community.
With a fourth book project on the way soon (this being a queer adult rom-com about lost loves, a European tour, food, wine, bisexuality, art, pleasure, and gender), and some top-secret film and television projects they can’t disclose the details of just yet, McQuiston’s media empire is steadily growing. It is a treat to witness younger LGBTQ+ generations get the kind of representative content they’ve long awaited.
“Queer fiction was such a formative experience for me because as a young person, it was the safest place I had to engage with queerness and the closest thing to a tangible queer community I could access,” they say. “So much of my work now as an author is about taking care of that conduit and preserving it for young queer and trans people who need it the way I did.” @casey.mcquiston
Storytellers
Randy Wicker
Meet one of the artists, disruptors, educators, groundbreakers, innovators, and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people.
Photo by Brendan Fay
Over the last 65 years, LGBTQ+ advocate, journalist, and archivist Randy Wicker has achieved many firsts. In 1962 he organized a radio broadcast that caused the Federal Communications Commission to rule that homosexuality was a legitimate topic for on-air discussion. In 1964 Wicker organized the first public demonstration for gay civil rights in the United States, which took place in front of the U.S. Army Induction Center in New York City. Also in 1964, he was the first out gay person to participate in a live television show when he answered calls on The Les Crane Show.
“I’ve always been a truth-telling journalist willing to confront power and champion unpopular causes,” says Wicker. “That is what motivated me to join the New York Mattachine Society in 1958 and be the first self-identified homosexual to speak out on radio in 1962.”
Now 85 years old, Wicker shows no signs of slowing down. This year Wicker launched a petition to remove the statue of Gen. Phil Sheridan from Stonewall National Park — because of Sheridan’s massacre of Indigenous people. He also served as a grand marshal at this year’s NYC Pride March.
Recently, he donated his archives to the National LGBTQ+ Archives. “My archives are titled ‘The Randy Wicker & Marsha P. Johnson’ archives since Marsha P. Johnson lived with me for over a decade and was the house mother of my extended gay family,” says Wicker. “Twenty-five years of my Christmas letters contain many stories about her.”
Though much progress has been made thanks to Wicker’s work, he is adamant that the fight continues, especially in other parts of the world. He notes that “genocidal hatred and religious intolerance” run rampant in many societies. “We must help LGBTQ+ people overseas improve their circumstances!” @randolfewicker