Meet Charlie Sprinkman

Class of 2023 BEQ Pride LGBTQ Leader Under 40

Pronouns: He, They

Age: 26

Who or what inspires your leadership purpose? And why?

As one that has traveled quite a bit, I really wanted to think of something for when queers and allies are traveling the world or looking locally, they can find places that accept them no matter who they are. That is when I thought of Everywhere Is Queer, a world-wide map of queer-owned businesses! ~ Charlie Sprinkman

Over three years ago, Charlie Sprinkman was traveling the United States for a job with a large organic beverage company, searching for queer hangouts in the 42 states he visited. The results were often nonexistent. Last January, Sprinkman took matters into his own hands with the launch of “Everywhere is Queer” — an online directory of LGBTQ+-owned businesses worldwide.

Sprinkman wanted to recreate that feeling of camp every day. All around the world. One day while driving back to Colorado, the name “Everywhere is Queer” popped into his head.

“I pulled over, and I was just Googling and trying to find something on my phone, going through all of the Google pages just to find this idea of a worldwide map of queer spaces,” he said. “I couldn’t find anything. All I could find was articles to ‘support these eight queer-owned businesses.’”

Sprinkman continued the search from home, hoping it would be easier to locate something from a computer. Still, a database or list didn’t exist.

“I said, ‘I’m gonna try to build something,’” Sprinkman said. “I just came up with exactly what Everywhere is Queer is today.”

Launched on January 2, Everywhere is Queer has already grown to include more than 900 queer-owned businesses worldwide, including Hong Kong, Istanbul and Uganda. Most importantly, each business has been added by the business owner. The Everywhere is Queer Map shows 1.2M views and Instagram followers of almost 59K.

Everywhere is Queer.

To learn about more leaders recognized by BEQ Pride, visit https://businessequalitymagazine.com/MoreLeaders

To connect with this leader, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-sprinkman-b9ba05107/