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Chuck Wheeler
Jonathan Lee
Storytellers

Chuck Wheeler

Meet some of the artists, disruptors, educators, groundbreakers, innovators, and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people.

Queer films are more vital now than ever, and Chuck Wheeler knows that as coordinator of the OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival, one of the largest LGBTQ+ film festivals in the southeast. The festival attracts thousands of attendees yearly. While COVID presented a signifcant setback, Wheeler and his team have been wildly successful at rebuilding the event and helping it flourish.

The festival, which “celebrates a worldwide glimpse of today’s LGBTQ+ life,” according to its website, has been going on for 29 years in Durham, N.C., and Wheeler has been a part of it since the beginning back in 1996, when it was called the North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

“The festival’s existence in 2024 was more important than ever, as it provided the LGBTQ+ community a chance to gather as one, especially in the face of growing political adversity and escalating violence against us, particularly towards transgender members of our community,” Wheeler says.

“I was 16 when Stonewall occurred, I lost most of my friends during the AIDS epidemic, I was violently struck in the face by a guy who called me a ‘f****t’ in 1982, I marched in Washington for our rights in 1993, I celebrated the legalization of gay marriage in North Carolina in 2014, I married my longtime partner two weeks later, and I heralded the long-overdue arrival of gay marriage throughout the U.S. in 2015,” he continues. “That is, I’ve witnessed and lived through the good and the bad. Now in 2024, however, I feel as if it is pre-Stonewall again, and I am deeply saddened and angry that having come so far, everything we have accomplished is again being challenged.” @outsouthqueerfilmfest

Laurie Hernandez
Charlotte Drury
Storytellers

Laurie Hernandez

Meet some of the artists, disruptors, educators, groundbreakers, innovators, and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people.

Charlotte Drury

The nation rooted for Laurie Hernandez as a part of the “Final Five” USA gymnastics team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where she won the team gold and silver in balance beam. That was when she was a teen. Now the next stage of her life has begun.

Hernandez, who has been dating her partner Charlotte Drury since 2020, is currently a full-time NYU student. This summer, she provided commentary for NBC’s coverage of women’s gymnastics at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she quickly became a fan-favorite announcer. She even dropped a clever “and they were roommates…” Sapphic reference!

The future is bright for Hernandez, who next plans on acting and writing (both novels and screenplays) and is looking forward to graduation, after which she hopes to continue to make the world a better place. “In a world often weighted with shame and judgment, be the person that makes a space welcoming for all,” she says. “It’s a conscious thought, but a worthy one.” @lauriehernandez