Robin Byrd, New York’s fairy godmother of sex-positive television, finally gets her close-up

This story originally appeared on Out.If the queer community of New York City had a fairy godmother, it would be Robin Byrd.Sure, her crinoline ball gown was replaced by a black crochet string bikini, and her magic wand had a big plastic rubber at the end. But for decades, Byrd made people’s fantasies feel possible while fiercely protecting them from the forces that wanted queer sex, queer bodies, and queer pleasure pushed back into shame.I first met her during one of my earliest trips to Fire Island about ten years ago. Not growing up in New York, I had no real reference point for who she was. But even before I understood the full mythology, I understood the reaction. She moved along the boardwalks like a minor deity: hair in a bun, body unmistakable, presence undeniable. When people referred to her, I could tell she was someone special.Since then, I have become more than familiar with the legacy and lore surrounding her. For those who may not yet know, the new HBO documentary Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival and arrives on HBO June 30, offers a long-overdue introduction to Byrd’s celebrity, her public-access empire, and the tireless advocacy work she did for the LGBTQ+ community during some of the most frightening and formative eras of our recent history.“I am so happy that people get to see me for me,” Byrd, 71, tells Out of the documentary, “because everybody has their own conceived fantasy. Everybody thinks they know me.”Directed by Jyllian Gunther and Stephanie Schwam, and produced by Sarah Jessica Parker’s Pretty Matches Productions, the film is not merely a nostalgia trip through late-night cable, vintage porn stars, and pre-Giuliani downtown debauchery. It is that, of course, and thank God. But it is also a portrait of a woman who understood something long before the mainstream caught up: that sex could be silly and sacred, that pleasure could be political without being programmatic, and that being see