Tegan and Sara
Canadian musicians and activists Tegan and Sara Quin have leveraged their 20+ year musical career to be loud voices in the fight for LGBTQ+ equality and gender justice.
Tegan, in white, and Sara Quin via Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times
Tegan and Sara in concert in 2016. Photography by Dominik Magdziak/2016 Getty Images via Vulture
Tegan and Sara Quin have all the accolades of accomplished musical artists: They’ve stacked up music industry awards and performed on the most major stages like Coachella, Lollapalooza and Glastonbury. Tegan and Sara’s presence on the Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack, most notably “Where Did The Good Go,” put their sound into millions of American homes in the 2000s. Their 2012 hit “Closer” has over 24 million views on YouTube. They topped the charts with their mainstream hit from The Lego Movie soundtrack, “Everything is AWESOME!!!” ft. The Lonely Island.
Tegan and Sara have all this, and they also stand for so much more. The twins are keenly aware of using their platform and celebrity for good. Tegan and Sara have both openly identified as queer since 1998 when their joint career was just beginning. They launched the Tegan and Sara Foundation in 2016 with the mission of improving the lives of LGBTQ+ women and girls. They put their mission into practice by providing scholarships and funding support for US and Canadian LGBTQ+ summer camps, running various queer health initiatives, and by bringing LGBTQ+-themed literature into US classrooms by funding teacher-initiated projects.
The twins’ 2019 memoir High School is written in chapters alternating from Tegan’s and Sara’s POV. The memoir explores Tegan and Sara’s not-always-easy coming of age process in Calgary, Alberta amongst the 90s grunge and rave culture. The Quins state right on their About page that the “essential message that underpins their worldview and identity is inclusion.” At a packed Brooklyn performance in 2017, we were surrounded by an ebullient audience that embraced and championed their inclusivity, including a woman in a shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Anti-Diet Club.” The connection between the two performers and the audience could not have felt stronger with everyone singing along to each song passionately.
Homepage thumbnail image by Trevor Brady via Rolling Stone