Lives That Light Our Way
“We are everywhere.” — Queer mantra, truth, and promise.
Queer Reflection isn’t just about telling stories. It’s about making people feel them.
We believe empathy is more than understanding—it’s embodiment. It’s the act of stepping into someone else’s experience long enough to change your own. But empathy doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It stands on the foundation of those who came before—the fighters, the visionaries, the truth-tellers who made it possible for us to be here, asking for more.
The Shoulders We Stand On is our tribute to ten of those lives.
Over the next entries in this series, we’ll honor the queer pioneers whose courage still shapes the work we do at Queer Reflection. Some raised their fists. Some raised their voices. Some raised the bar for what we imagined was possible. All of them made the ground steadier beneath our feet.
You’ll meet revolutionaries like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who reminded the world that no movement is complete if it leaves its most vulnerable behind.
You’ll hear the voices of poets and historians like Audre Lorde and Vito Russo, who shattered silence and demanded that our stories be told, and told truthfully.
You’ll confront the quiet brilliance of Alan Turing, whose codebreaking helped end a war, even as his own government tried to erase him for who he loved.
You’ll stand in the light of Harvey Milk, who understood that visibility isn’t vanity—it’s survival.
You’ll meet José Sarria, who crowned defiance with pageantry and declared that dignity wears heels.
You’ll feel the sharp, unapologetic self-expression of Quentin Crisp, and the strategic genius of Bayard Rustin, whose labor powered a movement that often tried to exile him.
Their lives aren’t relics. They’re blueprints.
At Queer Reflection, we build empathy encounters to bridge the space between knowing and feeling. But the emotional resonance we seek—the understanding we want people to feel—has been carved out for us by these ten lives.
This series is not just about history. It’s about inheritance.
It’s about gratitude. And it’s about responsibility.
Because we don’t stand here alone.
We stand on their shoulders.
And the work continues.
