Late in 88

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains subject matter that some listeners may find triggering. If you or someone you love is struggling please contact the Canadian suicide crisis help line at 988, or kidshelpphone.ca anytime, day or night. Internationally please contact your local crisis assistance centre. In this series finale of Late in ’88, Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda take listeners on an...

*Content Warning* This episode of Late in 88 explores domestic violence, sexual violence, medical trauma, homophobic and transphobic harassment, and teenage substance use, listener discretion is advised. In this episode of Late ’88, Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda reconnect with musician, producer, and author Rae Spoon, a trailblazing Canadian trans icon and Bronwin’s former gas-station co-worker...

In this episode of Late ’88, Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda reconnect with Professor Tanya Callahan of the University of Calgary to revisit Alberta’s high school sexual education curriculum of the ’90s—especially the Career and Life Management (CALM) course. They discuss how Catholic and public schools handled (or erased) topics like homosexuality, gender identity, and safe queer sex. Tanya refl...

In this episode of Late in ’88, Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda sit down with Tegan Quin of iconic alternative band Tegan and Sara to time-travel back to their shared high school years in late-’90s Calgary. Tegan talks about writing the memoir High School, uncovering secret journals that revealed just how differently the sisters experienced queerness, ambition, and teenage chaos. Together, they u...

In this episode of "Late in '88," hosts Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda reconnect with Courtney, a classmate from their high school in Calgary, Alberta. Courtney shares her unique upbringing with two gay dads and the challenges of navigating her identity during high school. The conversation touches on tmany high school memories but also, the impact of media on their perceptions of coming out. The...

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains subject matter that some listeners may find triggering. If you or someone you love is struggling please contact the Canadian suicide crisis help line at 988, or kidshelpphone.ca anytime, day or night. Internationally please contact your local crisis assistance centre. Hosts Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda discuss the typical queer story of coming out, that w...

Hosts Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda get back on the couch with clinical psychologist Dr. Kate to unpack the chaos, beauty, and heartbreak of graduating high school in 1998. Together they explore what’s really happening in the brain and body of teenagers. Alongside Dr. Kate’s insights, you’ll hear raw personal stories about navigating domestic violence, chronic depression, and the homophobia pre...

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains subject matter that some listeners may find triggering around self harm and teenage substance abuse. If you or someone you love is struggling please contact the Canadian suicide crisis help line at 988, or kidshelpphone.ca anytime, day or night. Internationally please contact your local crisis assistance centre. The episode explores the impact of a best frien...

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains subject matter that some listeners may find triggering around self harm and teenage substance abuse. If you or someone you love is struggling please contact the Canadian suicide crisis help line at 988, or kidshelpphone.ca anytime, day or night. Internationally please contact your local crisis assistance centre. Late in 88 returns for a new season, jumping a...

Hosts Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda bring back queer historian Kevin Allen to highlight significant advancements in queer history between 1980s into the 90s, touching on the AIDS crisis, the first Pride parade in 1990, and the Delwyn and Vreen case, which ruled against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The conversation also touches on cultural backlash, the emergence of queer communit...

Late in 88 is a podcast hosted by Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda. The two grade school classmates will share their experiences of growing up queer and gender non-conforming in Calgary, Alberta 1988, at a time when there wasn't language to describe identities that were fringe and undefinable. By shining a light on their middle childhood, Bronwin and Elinor explore the impact of historical context...

Hosts Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda take the podcast on location and meet up in present day Calgary (2024) and it was a more visceral experience than either one of them expected. They tour their elementary school, explore old artifacts and finally answer the question of the podcast: What if they would have been friends from a more impressionable age in 1988? Resources: It Gets Better by Dan Sav...

Grade 4 brings the onset of puberty, burgeoning crushes and big questions. Host Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda discuss how an encounter with ‘the question box’ in health class changed Bronwin's middle childhood. This leads the hosts to investigate how the Alberta curriculum approached homosexuality in 1988. Spoiler: It hasn’t really changed 30 years later.  This episode includes interviews with:...

Hosts Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda explore the complexity of gender roles and social expectations in adolescence, with a focus on the impact of patriarchy on gender-nonconforming behaviours. Clinical psychologist Dr. Kate Thomson helps them navigate identity during middle childhood, as they reflect on changing social constructs around friends who were boys, despite their identifying as “tomboy...

Alberta has always been known as one of the most conservative provinces in Canada. Imagine growing up as a queer kid in Calgary in the 1980s...there were definitely some challenges. In this episode of Late in 88, hosts Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda explore the impact that Olympic fever had on their friends when the Winter Olympic games came to town in 1988. Olympic tales are told between childh...

How much can you remember from your childhood? Say, when you were eight years old? It may be a bit fuzzy, but this is where we meet the hosts of Late in 88, Bronwin Parks and Elinor Svoboda. They travel back to grade four; a time when they both identified as tomboys but never really understood where they belonged. Through discussing their shared challenges surrounding gender identity and queerness...