LGBTQ&A

Rep. Barney Frank served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 2013. He talks about being one of the first members of Congress to come out, how the AIDS crisis forced Congress to act, and the current state of the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement. Plus, his "Trophy Husband", Jim Ready, drops by to say hello.

(This interview contains explicit sexual content.) Gigi Raven Wilbur talks about learning that they were intersex in college, the transformational power of BDSM in their life, and how they're feeling living in Texas right now among the current onslaught of anti-trans legislation.

Martha Shelley began her life as a gay activist before the Stonewall uprising. She talks about joining the Daughters of Bilitis, co-founding the Gay Liberation Front, the first pride march, and her memoir, "We Set The Night On Fire".

Mia Yamamoto talks about her work as a criminal defense attorney, the racism she faced growing up as a Japanese-American after World War II, and coming out as trans later in life.

Bob "Rose" Levine talks about his first trip to Cherry Grove in 1955, being a part of the original drag "Invasion of the Pines" in 1976, and how the AIDS crisis changed Fire Island in the 1980s.

Ma-Nee Chacaby talks about learning that she was Two-Spirit as a kid, her rural upbringing, and the challenges of being an out indigenous lesbian in Thunder Bay, Canada in the 1980s. Ma-Nee is the author of A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder. (Note: This episode discusses domestic violence.)

"Put love in front of you when you get up in the morning and it'll guide you to a beautiful place. It'll guide you."

Sandy Stone talks about working with the lesbian separatists of Olivia Records, why the attacks on the trans community today mirror the attacks from the 1970s, and the moment that led her to write "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto"—an essay that became a founding document of trans studies.

Joan Jett Blakk (a.k.a. Terence Alan Smith) talks about her historic 1992 presidential campaign, why the AIDS crisis influenced her run, and what it was like to be an out gay teenager in the '70s. 

"They still ask the same questions that they asked in the '90s. 'Drag queens run for president in America?' I'm like, 'Well, they told us anybody could run for president. Anybody.' So, okay, we'll make them stick to that word."

Duane Michals has never followed the rules. The pioneering photographer, now 92 years old, says, "Because I didn't learn the photo rules it was very easy for me to abandon them. You're either defined by the medium...well, I redefined the medium."

Duane talks about discovering his love for photography in the 1950s, not looking down on commercial work, his half-century-long relationship with his partner, and why talking about "art" makes him want to vomit.

Hi! We're coming back! On February 27th! And we're continuing our special series, The LGBTQ+ Elders Project. I can't wait for you to hear it.

When Amy Ray first started playing music with her Indigo Girls bandmate, Emily Saliers, her "head felt like it was going to explode". She remembers thinking, "This is amazing. Not, we sound amazing. But this feels amazing. It was always about, This feels amazing."

They've been playing together for over 35 years now and it's their music that the queer community (and Greta Gerwig in the new Barbie movie) continues to return to again and again. Amy joins us to talk about the band's legacy, coming out publicly in the '90s, and the lasting power of "Closer to Fine".

Darcelle XV (Walter Cole), the world's oldest drag queen, died on March 23, 2023. She was 92.

Since 1967, Darcelle has been performing and running the Portland drag venue, Darcelle XV Showplace, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2020. I had the opportunity to speak with Darcelle and her friend and collaborator, Poison Waters (Kevin Cook) a few weeks before her death.

This is part of our special series, the LGBTQ+ Elders Project. You can listen to previous interviews with LGBTQ+ elders like Angela Davis, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, André De Shields, and Dr. Charles Silverstein.

Shatzi Weisberger died this week at the age of 92. A lifelong activist, Shatzi was a fixture at marches and protests here in NYC and was affectionately known as The People’s Bubbie. "I was a political lesbian for many years. I just loved being around lesbians...one of my earlier demonstrations was here in New York City and we did a die-in along with other people lying on the ground. And I started to cry because I felt that I was in the right place, doing the right things with the right people. I felt very together about it. I have been an activist ever since."

In the later part of her life, Shatzi became a death educator and helped people to dismantle their fears and worries around dying.

This interview was originally recorded in April 2022 and was one of her last. We wanted to reshare it today to help honor her and remember her remarkable life.

"I totally support the politics of coming out, but at the same time, I'm critical of the assumption that one's identity has to be the major driving force that determines one's politics." 

For the final episode of our season, Angela Davis joins us to talk about how to keep pushing movements forward, why her incarceration was crucial in shaping her political journey, and why we must challenge the notion that there is only one important revolutionary struggle.

"Prior to Hadestown, I played The Magical Negro. I have no regrets about that. But all the while...and this is going to sound corny, but it's true. All the while I was saying, 'Why doesn't someone cast me for my mind? For my intellect? Am I really just another pretty face?' And it came together in Hadestown."

André De Shields talks about the five decades he's spent working on Broadway, being a long-term survivor of HIV, and arriving in New York City during the sexual revolution of the 1970s.

Please welcome to the stage, Miss Memory Lane! Colton Haynes talks about the barriers that queer actors still face in Hollywood, why he went back into the closet while acting on hit shows like Teen Wolf and Arrow, and his new memoir, Miss Memory Lane.

The history-making politician shares every inspiring, heartbreaking, and drunken moment that led her to become the first openly trans person to serve in a state legislature in the United States. Danica Roem's new memoir, Burn The Page, is out now. 

Janelle Monáe (!!!) joins us to talk about her journey to becoming a queer icon, new music, and her debut book, The Memory Librarian.

“One of the main points that’s super important is about the threat of censorship, memory censorship. Because as we know, memories are essentially our stories that we tell ourselves to survive.”

As of today, a Black lesbian is now the voice and face of the United States government. Karine Jean-Pierre, the newest White House press secretary, joins us to talk about why there is a place for all of us in politics, no matter what you might think of as the typical background or narrative for a politician. If a queer woman of color who immigrated to the U.S. as a kid could make it in politics, she says, then so can you. 

With his crucial new book, historian Hugh Ryan restores The Women's House of Detention to its rightful place in LGBTQ+ history. "It was one of the Village’s most famous landmarks: a meeting place for locals and a must-see site for adventurous tourists. And for tens of thousands of arrested women and transmasculine people from every corner of the city, the House of D was a nexus, drawing the threads of their lives together in its dark and fearsome cells."

Hugh Ryan, author of The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison joins us on the podcast to talk about how years before the Stonewall Uprising, the House of Detention changed queer history.

"When I was in the pool, HIV/AIDS didn't exist. That was a sanctuary for me. It was a place that I could go to, really to seek refuge from the stress of the HIV diagnosis."

Four-time Olympic gold medal winner, Greg Louganis joins us to talk about his infamous concussion at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, sharing his HIV status with the world in 1995, and what life's been like since retiring from diving.

Jamison Green has spent his career fighting to make the healthcare world a safer, more accessible place for transgender people.

He talks about the seeming invisibility of trans men, gives the best explanation I've ever heard for why people feel threatened by gender nonconformity, and talks about coming into his bisexuality in his 50s. Jamison is the former president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association) and the author of the very excellent memoir, Becoming A Visible Man. He was born in 1948.

Ruthie Berman shares her epic, decades-long love story with her wife, Connie Kurtz. She talks about how they fell in love in the 1970s, successfully sued the New York City Board of Education for domestic partner benefits in 1988, and reflects on how much has and hasn't changed for LGBTQ+ people since she came out 50 years ago.

"I deserve better in my golden years than what I have now. The world sucks. America is in the worst place in my history that it's ever been and I'm concerned about my community."

Our new LGBTQ+ elders project is here! Barbara Satin talks about her "ministry of presence", making sure that trans people are a loud and visible part of the LGBTQ+ community. After coming out in the late '90s, Barbara quickly learned that it was "important for them to have an understanding of who we are and to actually see somebody and interact with somebody and to know and respect a trans person as a positive role model."

Barbara Satin is 87 years old.

"It was a great privilege to be gay. Otherwise, I'd probably be very boring and unhappy and unexamined." John Cameron Mitchell (currently starring as Joe Exotic in Joe vs Carole) talks about the extraordinary legacy of Hedwig And The Angry Inch and how playing Hedwig changed his own experience of gender and sexuality.

This episode will make you bi. Please listen at your own risk. Margaret Cho talks about bisexuality, BDSM, polyamory, and the first time she ever tried Stacy's Pita Chips.

"I get polyamory fatigue and I get total BDSM fatigue...It takes so much energy in terms of negotiating and what you want and what you're doing and I just don't have the energy for it."