LGBTQ&A

Carmelita Tropicana was created almost by accident: a made-up name, blurted out at a radio broadcast in the 1980s. But Carmelita, and the woman behind the character, Alina Troyano , went on to become one of the pillars of downtown New York theatre. Alina talks about the ongoing evolution of her iconic camp character, spoofing both masculinity and femininity in her work, and her relationship with t...

Longtime activist Karla Jay recalls the early days of the Gay Liberation Front , the all-women's dance that ended in a mafia raid, and the Lavender Menace's 1970 takeover of the Second Congress to Unite Women that produced The Woman-Identified Woman manifesto: "A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion." LGBTQ&A⁠ is an independent, listener-suppor...

"Because I didn't learn the photo rules it was very easy for me to abandon them." The pioneering photographer Duane Michals 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. Duane died last week at the age of 94. LGBTQ&a...

At 100 years old, Alan Shayne's life has spanned the entirety of the modern LGBTQ rights movement . He got his start acting on Broadway in the 1940s, then became a casting director (casting  Barbra Streisand , Diane Keaton, Cicely Tyson, and Dustin Hoffman in many of their earliest roles) before becoming president of Warner Bros. Television. Alan did this all while living a gay life that defie...

"Silence = Death" has become the defining image of ACT UP and the AIDS crisis. Avram Finkelstein , co-creator of the Silence = Death poster and a founding member of ACT UP, takes us back to where it all began: how the image came together months before ACT UP was even formed, how the artist collective Gran Fury created the visual language of the AIDS crisis, and why he believes ACT UP was a far mor...

Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Congressman who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for over thirty years, died at the age of 86. The first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay, Frank became one of the most consequential openly gay politicians in American history. He was instrumental in repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, passing the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, a...

The legendary transgender elder and activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy died yesterday. She was 78. A veteran of the Stonewall uprising, Miss Major dedicated her life to the transgender movement. She worked for multiple HIV/AIDS organizations and spent a decade at the Transgender, Gender-Variant, and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), which works with and advocates for trans people of color inside of...

Please enjoy this episode of Inner Voice , a new podcast from Jeffrey Marsh and Zaq Latino. Jeffrey Marsh is a Zen teacher, Oprah-endorsed author, and social media phenomenon. In this episode, they speak with the hosts of Transparently Speaking about how to best parent a trans kid when the world is seemingly on fire. ⁠LGBTQ&A⁠ is an independent, listener-supported podcast. ⁠ Click here ⁠ to ch...

Across 32 states, outdated HIV criminalization laws continue to punish people living with HIV. Robert Suttle shares his story of being prosecuted in Louisiana after a former partner accused him of not disclosing his status and he explains why these laws are based on bad science. LGBTQ&A⁠ is an independent, listener-supported podcast. ⁠ Click here ⁠ to check out our Substack and learn more abou...

In 2019, almost 15 years after the beloved TV show, Noah's Arc, cemented itself into queer history, its star, Darryl Stephens , was considering shifting his focus away from acting. His subsequent roles were often met with the same response, fans expressing variations of "You'll always be Noah to me" and questions of "When's Noah going to come back?" If he couldn&#39...

“I'm at an age when writers are supposed to say finally what mattered most to them—for me, it would be thousands of sex partners." Edmund White died this week at the age of 85. Earlier this year, I got to speak with him at his home in N.Y.C. about his latest novel, "The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir", co-writing "The Joy of Gay Sex" with Dr. Charles Silverstein, and his evolving relationship to s...

Why is the world so threatened by the existence of trans people? Historian Susan Stryker joins us to break it all down. She talks about how she's thinking about the onslaught of attacks targeting the trans community, her time with the activist group Transgender Nation , and why she views transness as "a practice of freedom".  This is a part of our special series, The LGBTQ+ Elders Pr...

Edmund White talks about his groundbreaking 1982 novel, A Boy's Own Story , co-writing The Joy of Gay Sex , his evolving relationship with sex now that he's in his 80s, and his new book, The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir.  This is a part of our special series, The LGBTQ+ Elders Project . ⁠ Click here ⁠ to listen to our recent interview with Dr. Charles Silverstein, co-author of The Joy of...

Throughout his decades-long career, Bob Mackie has designed costumes and gowns for some of the most legendary names in entertainment history: Cher, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Whitney Houston, Carol Burnett, and Elton John, among many others. He joins LGBTQ&A to talk about his longtime (and still ongoing) collaboration with Cher, the infamous Gone With The Wind curtain dress from The Carol B...

Randy Wicker talks about joining the Mattachine Society in 1958, one of the first gay rights groups in the U.S. He also talks about leading what's considered the first pro-gay protest in the U.S. , the 1966 "Sip-in" at Julius' in New York City, and sharing his home with Marsha P. Johnson . The Randy Wicker and Marsha P. Johnson Archive:   https://queerserial.com/randywicker Pay I...

Mark Segal moved to New York City in May of 1969 and a month later found himself at The Stonewall Inn as the now-infamous police raid began. "The police came in, pretended that they were doing their duty, got their pay off," he says. "The difference here was they barged in, they threw people up against the wall, they extorted money from some of the older people, they harassed the dr...

Laverne Cox talks about being on the cover of Time magazine ten years ago, the pressure she's faced as one of the most visible members of the trans community, and how the Bostock v. Clayton County Supreme Court case with Aimee Stephens impacts all LGBTQ+ people. LGBTQ&A is an independent, listener-supported podcast. Please consider joining our ⁠ Substack⁠ as a paid Subscriber to help suppo...

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. LGBTQ&A is an independent, listener-supported podcast . Please consider jo...

(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. LGBTQ&A is an independent, listener-supported podcast. Please consider joining our Substack to help support our...

Martha Shelley talks to poet Audre Lorde in an episode of her radio show, Lesbian Nation. This was originally recorded in 1972 and is a part of Martha's archive at the Lesbian Herstory Archive . Martha is a pre-Stonewall activist who got her start in the 1960s with the Daughters of Bilitis. Click here to listen to our new sit-down interview with Martha that aired last week. This is a part of o...

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". LGBTQ&A is an independent, listener-supported podcast. Please consider joining our Substack as a paid Subscriber to help support our work. This is a p...

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. LGBTQ&A is an independent, listener-supported podcast. Please consider subscribing to our Substack in order to help support our work. This is a part of our special series, The LGBTQ+ Elders Project . Click here to li...

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. LGBTQ&A is an independent, listener-supported podcast. Please consider joining our Substack to help support our work. This is a part of our special series, The LGBTQ+ Elders Project...

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&#...

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. You can learn more about Girl Island, the documentary that's in the works...