Deep Dive with Shawn

Send us Fan Mail Sex and sex education is an exciting, and sometimes controversial topic. LGBTQ sex and sex education is, unfortunately, more controversial, especially in today’s political environment. But, for me – it’s also more exciting. And, having this conversation, and talking about sex can bring us joy; it can make us happier and more fulfilled people; it can enhance our relationships and o...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Pride Month! This is the 53rd annual pride in the United States. The first, in 1970, happened in New York City to mark the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots – popularly considered to be a seminal moment in gay rights in the United States, when the queer community – trans folks, gay folks, drag queens, queers of all colors and races – protested the brutal tactics...

Send us Fan Mail The horror show that is the Republican Party’s attack on the queer community, particularly the trans community, in the United States is not just limited to our country. Anti-queer sentiment is taking hold in many countries and regions across the globe. So, in this respect, the United States is not unique. What is unique, however, is the United States’ singular ability to export an...

Send us Fan Mail Following the  2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell, it was unclear how Republicans would respond - if there would be some significant backlash. It seemed that Republicans accepted the decision as the final word on gay marriage, and public opinion polling consistently showed high support amongst voters. And, that support was bleeding into other queer-related issues, notably t...

Send us Fan Mail In the first part of this episode, I'm talking to Ann Thomas – founder, CEO, and manager of Transgender Talent – an independent production company and talent management for trans performers and artists. We talk about the entertainment industry, how its changed (and in some ways how it hasn’t), challenges that trans performers and artists experience in the industry, how trans...

Send us Fan Mail **This episode was originally released on June 10, 2022. Given Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent comments about a "national divorce," it seems appropriate to revisit the history around this subject (with last week's episode), and the legality and likelihood of that happening in the future (this week's episode). Last week, I talked to Dr. Susan Schulten...

Send us Fan Mail **This episode was originally released on June 3, 2022. Given Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent comments about a "national divorce," it seems appropriate to revisit the history around this subject (with this week's episode), and the legality and likelihood of that happening in the future (next week's episode). This episode is the first of two (one today...

Send us Fan Mail Today's episode is the second of a three-part series that seeks to understand what underpins the Trumpism movement in the United States – who these voters are and what motivates them, and then how that fits into a broader global shift we’re seeing - away from liberal democracy. Last week I spoke to Dr. Arlie Hochschild about her book Strangers in Their Own Land   to understan...

Send us Fan Mail On November 8th, American voters did something relatively remarkable for a midterm election. We now know that Democrats will keep the Senate (perhaps even expand it by a seat) and that Republicans will narrowly take the House. This is a massive underperformance for Republicans. Along with a lot of other people, I’m interested in understanding what happened – and specifically, how...

Send us Fan Mail **On January 24, 2023, Pope Francis stated in an interview with the AP that being a homosexual is not a crime. This reminded me of a conversation that I had in October of 2022 with Dr. Frank Mugisha of Uganda about being gay and also Catholic. Today, Deep Dive is re-visiting that conversation. ** Today I’m talking to Dr. Frank Mugisha . He is the Executive Director of SMUG – which...

Send us Fan Mail In July of last year – 2022 – Lever Alejos emerged from the jungle in Panama, with no shoes, and just the tattered remains of clothes that still clung to his body after almost a week trekking through the Darien Gap – a 60 mile stretch of untamed, undeveloped jungle between Colombia and Panama. Lever was coming from Venezuela, escaping political persecution, in search of a better l...

Send us Fan Mail According to the 2022 Freedom in the World report issued by Freedom House – 38% of the global population live in Not Free countries, and only 20% live in Free countries. In 2022 alone, 60 countries experienced declines in democratic freedom, while only 25 experienced increases. This picture is stark – democracies are in decline. Authoritarianism is on the rise.  Increasingly, espe...

Send us Fan Mail When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, the general consensus was that Ukraine was outgunned, disorganized, and unable to mount any type of meaningful resistance. The expectation was that Ukraine would fall quickly – maybe even within days of the assault. But, that didn’t happen. And, it’s not like Russia struggled – Ukraine took the fight directly to Russia, denying...

Send us Fan Mail Consider this. 40% of all plastics that are produced today are just thrown away within a month of acquisition. Only 10% of all plastic waste is recycled – which means 90% is not. And 32% of all plastic waste ends up in nature, including our oceans. 9-14 million tons of plastic waste is dumped into the oceans every year. That’s 17 tons per minute – a garbage truck’s worth of plasti...

Send us Fan Mail Emmanuel Macron was only 39 and a relative neophyte when he was elected to the French presidency in 2017. In his first term in office, his policy agenda was so ambitious that it generated mass protest – known as the Yellow Vest movement -  that paralyzed the country. It got so bad that many wondered not only if his agenda would be imperiled, but if he would even survive re-electio...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve had a hard time characterizing this past year – has it been uniformly dire? No – there have been some promising signs. The midterms were a disaster for Republicans. They took the House, but by a vanishingly small margin and they were unable to flip the Senate. Election deniers up and down the ticket lost their elections (although some did win), and abortion-rights movements h...

Send us Fan Mail Last season, I did an episode with Dr. Peter LaChapelle about the history of country music and how/when, and why it transitioned from being the music of the working class and poor to being the music of right-wing conservatism. In that episode, we also talked about the history of African influence in country music – which made me wonder why there are so few voices in country music....

Send us Fan Mail I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my evolution as a human being, generally, but more specifically as a gay man – where I come from, how it influenced the trajectory of my life, how I fit into the community, how I’ve changed, and also how the world has changed (for good and bad) – and what does that mean for my future as a gay man, as a queer person. And, I thought it would be...

Send us Fan Mail In 2013, Russia adopted a federal law criminalizing the distribution to children of any material that depicts any non-traditional sexual relationships as normal and positive. Despite the language, this was targeting how queer folks and queer relationships are portrayed in Russia. Since then, anti-gay violence and anti-gay hate crimes have grown exponentially. And, as I speak, an u...

Send us Fan Mail Travel, to me, is something life-affirming, inspiring, and fulfilling; something almost necessary. It represents, in part, the ability to make those words and those images in guidebooks, on billboards, on Instagram - come to life – give them dimension. Not just the sight or description of a place, but also the smells, the sounds, the flavors, the energy. And, it makes anything see...

Send us Fan Mail On November 8th, American voters did something relatively remarkable for a midterm election. We now know that Democrats will keep the Senate (perhaps even expand it by a seat) and that Republicans will narrowly take the House. This is a massive underperformance for Republicans. Along with a lot of other people, I’m interested in understanding what happened – and specifically, how...

Send us Fan Mail In the first season of Deep Dive, I interviewed Dr. Peter La Chapelle about the history of country music and how it evolved into such a conservative space that is aggressively exclusive of queer folks, folks of color, and also women. And, that conversation sparked a personal interest to dive a bit deeper into this topic, to talk to some of these folks that don’t fit into the domin...

Send us Fan Mail Regardless of whether someone agrees with the policy positions of the Republican Party (of which, frankly, it’s difficult to ascertain), you have to ask yourself, in this election, when you cast your vote, if you can support a Party that poses such a threat to your country. And, I mean this, today’s Republican Party is an existential threat to the United States and its people. Thi...

Send us Fan Mail Post-pandemic travel poses unique challenges. Prices for vacation and car rentals have soared. Flights have been delayed and canceled as airlines have struggled with demand. And cruises started leaving port again after more than a year off the water. In this new travel landscape, I thought it would be a good idea to talk to an expert about consumer rights and expectations as the i...

Send us Fan Mail On September 16th of this year, Mahsa Amini, a 22 year old Iranian woman died in Tehran after being arrested by the Guidance Patrol, effectively the morality police, for bad hijab – which means that she wasn’t wearing the hijab, or veil, correctly. The official government line is that Mahsa suffered a heart attack in custody and subsequently died. However, eyewitnesses to the arre...