2024-25 Traveling Fellow
Werq the World: Drag Activism from a Global Context

For his Keegan Fellowship, William is planning to spend a year traveling the world researching political activism through the lens of global drag culture. In this pursuit, he hopes to garner a better understanding of the queer community and his place within it through having conversations with many diverse queer artists. Although his endeavor is primarily focused on drag queens, he is also interested in learning from a variety of different queer artists about how they combine their art with their activism.

Hometown: Lafayette, LA
Majors: Religious Studies and Political Science

William Romero (he/him) grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, and at the age of four, he was diagnosed with fibrous dysplasia, a rare benign bone disorder. While in high school, William transformed this diagnosis into a call for activism, devoting most of his free time to disability awareness and policy.

At Vanderbilt, William was the President of the Vanderbilt Alliance on Disability and Condition, where he helped lead a team to organize cross-campus advocacy. Outside of school, William interned at the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Disability Affairs, was a member of the Patient Advisory Council for the FD/MAS Alliance, the nonprofit related to his disease, and participated in the Young Adult Rare Representatives Leadership Academy.

After creating his drag persona, Daisy Bility, William has combined this passion for advocacy with his queer identity. Most recently, William has become a public speaker, speaking at Everylife’s national conference at the US Capitol and moderating upcoming queer and disability advocacy events. William hopes to see more examples of this sort of intersectional advocacy through the Keegan.