Originally posted on June 20, 2024 @ 8:00 am
Vice President Kamala Harris Meets Queer Eye Cast and Crew
On Thursday, June 13, 2024, The Vice President of The United States of America Kamala Harris welcomed the creators and cast from Queer Eye to The White House to commemorate 20 years of the series and its powerful transformation of television and LGBTQIA+ visibility in The United States.
Throughout their conversation with Vice President Harris, Queer Eye creators and executive producers David Collins and Michael Williams joined original and current cast members Carson Kressley and Jai Rodriguez as well as Karamo Brown and Jonathan van Ness.
The series, which first premiered in 2003, introduced audiences to five queer men and gave a platform for conversations around equality and acceptance around the world. The first iteration of the series, created by Collins and Williams, co-founders of Scout Productions, strived to see more visibility and queer voices on television.
Vice President Harris invited the show’s creators and cast to host a discussion in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building where the group revisited the impact of the series and how it helped advance LGBTQIA+ representation in the early 2000s, discuss the current landscape of LGBTQIA+ rights in the United States, the attacks on civil rights, and the upcoming election and its consequences.
The meeting was also timed to the 20th anniversary of when Vice President Harris first officiated same-sex marriages in her role as Attorney General of California. At the time, 61% of Americans opposed the legal recognition of same-sex marriages according to Gallup.
