“I felt forever changed in that moment” Raquel Willis on life, liberation, and ego death
The writer and public intellectual speaks to Jazmine Hughes about her radical memoir The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation.
Words by Jazmine Hughes Photography by Justin J. Wee Styled by Isaiah Dorty Stylist Assistance Trevon Smith Makeup by Laurel Charleston How useful it is, in the age of our phones – as our lives, our world, our education, our reality – that our intellectuals can traverse the screen with a bit of the ineffable, potent enough to slow us down.
Raquel Willis does not compete for attention. She does her work, and if you start to pay attention along the way, all the better. (Not to mention: what took you so long?) In a world where anyone can garner a following, and anything can become public, the role of “public figure” is no longer synonymous with having something to say.
Willis, though, is different, having caught attention for her words for decades. First, as a journalist, where she won a GLAAD Media award for her “Trans Obituaries Project,” and, increasingly, as a public speaker and activist.
