CHICAGO — Actor Wilson Cruz discussed his identity as an "actorvist" and his work with Glisten on June 22, 2026, at the Every Child Thrives Festival in Chicago. Cruz participated in a discussion with TIME editorial director Lucy Feldman at the Obama Presidential Center as part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's inaugural festival.

Cruz uses the term "actorvist" to describe himself. "I started calling myself that when it became very clear that there was no distinction between the work for me—that the work I was doing on stage or on television or on film was directly correlated to the work that I was doing as an activist," Cruz said. Cruz became the first openly gay actor to portray an openly lead gay character on U.S. primetime television in 1994, when he played Enrique "Rickie" Vasquez on the ABC teen drama My So-Called Life. He also portrayed one half of the first televised same-sex couple in the Star Trek universe on Star Trek: Discovery from 2017 to 2024.

"The way that we revealed ourselves as a people—as queer people, and especially queer people of color—through the medium of television and film, and the stories we told onstage, was changing the way that people felt about us," Cruz said. "And that work correlates directly to what I feel is my most important work—which is helping young people understand that they are seen." Cruz was one of 14 individuals selected for TIME's inaugural Visionaries list in June 2026.

Cruz has served as chair of the board of directors at the nonprofit Glisten since 2023. Glisten, formerly GLSEN, works to make K-12 schools safer for LGBTQ+ students by addressing discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. The ACLU reports there are 529 active bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S., which include measures related to curriculum censorship, school sports bans, and gender-affirming care bans.

"Everything I've [done] professionally or volunteer-wise is connected to the same goal, which is to have young people, especially young people of color, understand their power and that they can change this world," Cruz said. He asked, "How do we create young people who get so involved in their communities that they create the world that they know they deserve?" He added, "It starts in a safe classroom."

"I've never been more confident and more positive that we are going to get out of this moment and not just recreate something that was; we are going to build something bigger and new because we have to," Cruz said. He concluded, "There's no choice involved."