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RJ Lawrence (they/them) is the founder and former executive director of Telling Queer History. Inspired during their time working on the Marriage Equality Amendment campaign here in Minnesota, RJ was intrigued by the use of storytelling and one-on-one conversations to convey the campaign’s message while also noticing a need for a coalition to bring the LGBTQIA+ community together across age, class and race and other intersectional identities. Using their skills as an in-person volunteer recruiter, RJ started bringing together leaders, organizers and people who had built community through their struggles and survival. Created as a response to the erasure of the LGBTQIA+ history in public spaces, Telling Queer History, helped the LGBTQIA+ community use storytelling as a way to build empathy, compassion and healing. Telling Queer History ran from June 2013 to June of 2025. Today, RJ remains committed to their role as a connector and hopes the community continues to document each other's stories and invites all people to listen and safeguard the history of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Harry Waters Jr. is an actor, singer and theater director. He is best known for his role in Back to the Future as Marvin Berry which earned him a Golden Record for his rendition of “Earth Angel.” For over a decade Waters worked as an actor in New York on and off Broadway and as well as theaters across the country including The Guthrie Theater in the Twin Cities. In the first production of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, he created the role of Belize. Waters attended Princeton University and received his MFA in Directing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds a Meisner Acting Technique Teacher Certification with Larry Silverberg. Waters has taught acting, script development and has directed numerous productions in the Twin Cities as well as nationally. Currently retired, Waters is a professor emeritus in the Theater Department at Macalester College where he directed numerous productions including: Runaways, Proof, Angels in America Part I: Millennium Approaches, The Colored Museum, Tartuffe, In the Blood, The Laramie Project, Cabaret, The Cradle Will Rock, and URINETOWN.
José María Herrera Tamayo (they/them), raised in Miami, Florida, has lived in Minneapolis the last 10 years preserving queer history in some way or another. They made the move to Minnesota after studying journalism in Missouri and while they moved to Minnesota for love, José also found a flourishing queer community and refuge from the anti-trans legislation popping up throughout the country. As a working journalist, storytelling and telling queer stories were always important to José’s reporting, and through word of mouth, they became aware of the work RJ Lawrence was doing through Telling Queer History. In 2017, José Maria would become TQH’s first hire. Together they would chip away at the archive of stories while also developing TQH events. Today, José has shifted from their career as a journalist and is now an associate librarian for Hennepin County Public Libraries.
Jayce Wepplo (They/Them) is a Youth and Transgender Rights Activist and has been working within the Queer Nonprofit community in Minnesota for the past eight years. While in high school, Jayce was introduced to Telling Queer History (TQH) through various Youth Summits and Q Quests, events for students throughout the Twin Cities, where RJ Lawrence would hold workshops. Although the two had differing approaches to their work, RJ and Jayce would eventually work together at Telling Queer History with Jayce helping develop in-person workshops and digital timelines for the TQH website. Jayce continues to share their love of history with anyone willing to listen and see teaching history as a powerful act of resistance and foundation of hope.
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—————. “Over the Rainbow: Queer and Trans History in Minnesota.” MNopedia. May 25, 2021. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/over-rainbow-queer-and-trans-history-minnesota
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