Lives That Light Our Way

“We are everywhere.” — Queer mantra, truth, and promise.

At Queer Reflection, storytelling isn’t just what we do. It’s what we feel — and what we invite others to feel with us.

We believe empathy is more than understanding. It’s embodiment. It is the radical act of stepping into someone else’s experience long enough to let it change your own.

But empathy doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

It grows from the foundation laid by those who came before us — the fighters, the dreamers, the truth-tellers who made it possible for us to stand here today, daring to ask for more.

The Shoulders We Stand On is our twelve-part tribute to those lives — and the living legacy they left behind.

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 fought at Stonewall and beyond — reminding the world that no movement for justice is complete if it leaves its most vulnerable behind.

You will hear the powerful voices of poets and historians like Audre Lorde and Vito Russo, who shattered silence and demanded that our queer stories be told, remembered, and honored with truth, not erasure.

You’ll confront the quiet brilliance of Alan Turing, the mathematical genius whose codebreaking helped end World War II, even as his own government punished him in the most inhumane way for loving men — a stark reminder of how queerness has always existed even in the world’s defining moments.

You will stand in the enduring light of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, who showed the world that visibility is not vanity — it’s survival, it’s community, and it’s political power.

You’ll meet the incomparable José Sarria, who ran for public office long before it was “acceptable,” crowned defiance with dazzling pageantry, and declared to the world that dignity wears heels — and always has.

You will feel the sharp, unapologetic self-expression of Quentin Crisp, who lived openly and defiantly queer in a time and place that tried to punish him for it — and the strategic brilliance of Bayard Rustin, the architect behind the 1963 March on Washington, whose organizing genius built movements even as he was pushed to the margins for being Black and gay.

You’ll encounter the fierce clarity of Leslie Feinberg, whose work, including Stone Butch Blues, taught the world that gender is not destiny, and that claiming the right to self-determine your identity is itself a revolutionary act.

You will hear the radical truth-telling of Alice Walker, whose novels and activism taught us that liberation must be personal as well as political — that the freedom to love and the freedom to speak are inseparable.

And you’ll be lifted by the fearless voice of Margaret Cho, whose comedy, activism, and raw honesty proved that laughter is not just survival — it’s revolution.

Their Lives Are Not Relics. They Are Blueprints.

At Queer Reflection, we create empathy encounters that bridge the distance between knowing and feeling. But the emotional resonance we seek — the understanding we want people to feel in their bones — has been carved out for us by these extraordinary 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.