LGBTQ&A

Just like the queer experience, what it means to be Jewish is dramatically changing . TV writer and comedian H. Alan Scott has a new documentary, Latter Day Jew , that captures this change as Scott, a former Mormon, converts to Judaism, prepares for their bar mitzvah, and tries to figure out exactly what being Jewish looks like for them on a personal level. On this week's episode, H. Alan Scott ta...

In her new memoir, Camgirl , Isa Mazzei writes about just how much work goes into being a camgirl, calling it the hardest job she's ever had. On top of coming up with and executing fresh show ideas to make sure regular viewers were never bored, Mazzei's energy was focused on the online community she was building: remembering viewer's birthdays, checking in after job interviews, and responding to e...

For the first time, Whitney Houston's best friend, assistant, and long-rumored girlfriend, Robyn Crawford, is talking publicly about their relationship. "We were intimate on every level," Robyn says to guest host, Zach Stafford. Her new book is called A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston. LGBTQ&A is hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate magazine.

After more than five years, Mary Lambert's second full-length album, Grief Creature , is here. She talks about the highs and lows of "Same Love" with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, coming out in the church, growing up with a bisexual mom, and the life-saving importance of talking about your trauma. LGBTQ&A is produced by Jeffrey Masters. @jeffmasters1

LGBTQ+ people — all people, really — often turn to porn to make up for the failures in sex education. "We copy what we see," says Davey Wavey , the YouTube personality and creator of Himeros.tv.  And that creates problems. With Himeros.tv, Wavey is creating a more intentional and carefully crafted type of porn. Videos are created by a team of sex coaches, tantric instructors, and sexologists...

Cyrus Grace Dunham has written a complicated, necessary addition to the trans literary canon. A Year Without A Name , Dunham's debut book, recontextualizes gender dysphoria as something that is not solely exclusive to binary trans people. Readers get to know Cryus as Dunham gets to know Cyrus, and the memoir makes clear that one's journey to figuring out their gender is a messy, life-long process....

Hayley Kiyoko grew up watching the other girls around her as they'd fawn over pop stars; singers who were always male. Kiyoko resolved to be just like those pop stars one day. "I've always loved the attention of women and I never had the attention of women." She wanted that validation, to experience the unrestrained enthusiasm Justin Timberlake inspires.  And now she's achieved just that. Wom...

Rufus Wainwright steps into the hosting chair to take a trip down the yellow brick road. He talks with Renée Zellweger, the star of the new Judy Garland biopic, about their mutual devotion for the gay icon. LGBTQ&A is hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate.

It wasn't until she found out her character would be returning for the second season of Transparent that Trace Lysette was able to quit her job at Scores, the infamous New York City strip club made newly famous in the movie Hustlers . Lysette was working at Scores and other clubs, taking acting classes, and booking small roles on shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She was only open...

For Travis Coles , coming to terms with their gender has been a lifelong process, one that's been accelerated with their new role on David Makes Man , the new TV show written by Moonlight's Tarell Alvin McCraney and executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and Michael B. Jordan. Coles, like their character, Mx. Elijah, is genderqueer, Black, and brings a sense of fun and play to their gender performanc...

Live from the Big Queer Pod Fest in NYC, Shakina Nayfack talks about how subversive it can feel to be a trans woman learning to embrace herself as a sexual being who is worthy of love. She also talks about Manifest Pussy, the musical she wrote about her gender confirmation surgery, having to learn how to have sex again after transitioning, and why watching porn that stars trans women has been so l...

Rodney Evans , best known as the writer-director of the 2004 film Brother to Brother , has a career that's spanned over 20 years. In his new documentary, Vision Portraits , Evans chronicles the lives and creative processes of four visually impaired or blind artists, including Evans himself. LGBTQ&A is hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters . @jeffmasters1

As a young boy, Gamal Palmer — Senior Vice President of Leadership Development at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles — would sit in his local synagogue, wearing a yarmulke and in mid-prayer, as people would routinely approach to ask if he was Jewish. As a Black man, his participation, even his presence, was treated with disbelief.  There are many stereotypes about Jewish people; tha...

"If you want to write history, you need to be brave with what you think." Before becoming the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, Israel — the first openly gay person to hold the post and one of only a few women — Chen Arieli was an activist, one of the most visible and influential in the country. Now adjusting to life as a public official, she talks about working behind the scenes to assure that 2018 prote...

In 1993, almost a decade before Uzi Even would make history as the first openly gay person to serve in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, he took part in the first-ever Knesset meeting on the subject of queer people serving openly in the military. This turned Even, who was dismissed from the Israel Defense Forces when they discovered that he was gay, into a national celebrity, and lead the governme...

It was the late '80s, the height of the AIDS crisis. Rabbi Denise Eger was 28 years old—"a newly minted rabbi"—who would don mask, gown, and rubber gloves to visit members of her congregation in the hospital. Nurses were too afraid to enter the hospital rooms so they'd leave patients' meals outside. It was "the years when they thought you could catch it through the air," she recalls. Rabbi Eger wo...

"On the one hand, you want to celebrate what feels like progress," Alana Mayo begins. She's describing the range of identities we've begun to see on and off-screen — people that have been historically underrepresented in Hollywood, or worse, completely invisible. But she warns that the work isn't over.  "Is this a trend, or do we feel like we've actually reached a tipping point of change? I t...

"Are you a boy or a girl?" It's the question Karen Tongson's been asked more than any other throughout her life. When she was in grad school, following in the footsteps of countless butches before her, she finally cut her hair short, leaving behind the performative version of femininity. "I finally just shed that last bit of gender trouble."  "Gender is something t...

John Cameron Mitchell talks about the evolving legacy of Hedwig And The Angry Inch, why Hedwig is not a trans character, and how growing up queer teaches you empathy. "Empathy comes from being an outsider." LGBTQ&A is hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate magazine.

Not only do cities like Norfolk, Louisville, and Indianapolis have thriving LGBTQ+ communities, they're now seeing larger increases in their LGBTQ populations than places like San Francisco or New York. Samantha Allen documents this change in her new book, Real Queer America . It disproves the common my that if you want to be happy, you must move to a big city in a blue state.  LGBTQ&A is...

Now that he's retired, Adam Rippon talks about the process of figuring out what the rest of his life is going to look like after skating. LGBTQ&A is hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters. Follow up on Twitter: @lgbtqpod @jeffmasters1

Trans men exist; sometimes that feels like an important thing to remind people. While most people know who Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, and even Caitlyn Jenner are, the majority would have a harder time naming men of the trans experience. When Michael D. Cohen recently shared with the public that he transitioned in 2000, he instantly became one of Hollywood's most visible men in the trans community. T...

Vida shows how complicated the sex lives of queer people — of all people, really — can be. Tanya Saracho , the TV show's creator, wants audiences to feel like they're there in person, watching along as the intimate moments most TV shows cut away from. "Those sex scenes are shot very specifically," she says. "The uncomfortable parts, we want to stay and linger in them." Tanya Saracho talks about wo...

Ryan O'Connell says he didn't come out of "the disability closet" until he was 28. He talks about life as a queer person with Cerebral Palsy, why people shouldn't be afraid to talk about sex work, and his new Netflix show, Special. LGBTQ&A is hosted/created by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate magazine.

Amiyah Scott talks about discovering the ballroom scene in Atlanta after Hurricane Katrina forced her to leave New Orleans. "Balls were created to not only be a safe space, but to celebrate the community. We weren't being celebrated, so we decided to celebrate ourselves." Amiyah also talks about the challenges of playing a trans character on the TV show, Star, who is going through so many of the s...