Queeries is a weekly column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity through a personal lens.

You've read enough of these year-end pieces (and lived through this year, for that matter) to know the deal by now: 2020 was a relentless, abhorrent beast of a year filled with basically every horrible thing you can think of. But (and you've read enough of these year-end pieces to know where I'm going with this too), there were good things too if you were lucky enough to find the mental capacity to enjoy them! And given that this column has spent the last year mostly trying to find queer lights in the endless tunnel of a dark pandemic, I figured why not round up those lights and celebrate them all in one sparkling place?

Below is my highly subjective and not at all scientific countdown of 20 LGBTQ folks who helped salvage 2020 through sharing their work and/or lives with the many of us who have been stuck inside since March. And full disclosure: it's actually more like 43 of them — I doubled or tripled up a few of the rankings and I'm standing by it, because if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that there are no rules anymore!