Wilson Cruz

We knew Rickie was queer possibly before we knew that his legal name was Enrique. Angela called him bi, which Danielle clarified to mean bisexual, but on the last episode, he said out loud to another human being that he was gay for the first time. He made Patty uncomfortable, ditto Brian Krakow. Angela loved him, as did Rayanne. He was yet another basically invisible person to the person on whom a crush, and he was fiercely protected by a teacher who couldn’t explain to most of the people they knew why he understood Rickie so well. He was, in short, a gay kid like the gay kids so many of us knew in those days.

Wilson Cruz had no little in common with Rickie himself, and not just because he, like Rickie, was gay. (The Afro-Puerto Rican similarity, obviously, as well.) When the plot called for Rickie to be kicked out of his aunt and uncle’s house—I’m not sure we know what happened to his parents—it was an experience Cruz had already lived. His mother had come to accept his sexuality after he came out to her, but his father’s reaction had been to kick Cruz out of the house. Cruz lived in his car for several months—an option Rickie, with no car, did not have, but then Cruz was in LA, not Baltimore.

Apparently he refused to be anything but open about his sexuality even in those days. Rickie—a few years younger than I—was, therefore, not just the first openly queer teenager on TV but played by one of the first openly queer actors on TV. He was a landmark. Most of what he’s done since then has been either A Few Episodes Here And There of various things or else indie movies. And the stage, too; he appeared in Rent with Neil Patrick Harris and in the US tour of Tick, Tick . . . Boom! I find the Internet Broadway Database to be even more incomplete than IMDb, though, so I don’t know if that’s it.

And then, of course, he became one of the first openly gay characters in Star Trek. Fifty episodes of that puts you on the convention circuit for the rest of your life, if that’s what interests you, and you never need another acting gig again. Oh, he’s taken them, goodness knows, and his last episode of Discovery was last year. But between his two iconic TV show appearances, he’s basically set for life now, albeit modestly and at the rate cons can afford to pay.

To us, it wasn’t just Rickie’s sexuality. It was the whole show. (Is his character on 13 Reasons Why named Vazquez after Rickie? To know, I’d have to learn more about 13 Reasons Why.) Although he was nineteen when he was Rickie, older than I, he still gave the right feeling. Rickie, too, was someone you could know or be and definitely understand. Take, for instance, his unwillingness to choose between Angela and Rayanne during one of their fights. Of course he was; he loved them both and was afraid to lose anyone he loved. He had little enough love already.