Isn't It Queer

Jonny and Heather recover from a busy SIU Homecoming Weekend that (for them at least) had nothing to do with homecoming. They check in on more October surprises in the run up to the Midterm elections, including an allegation that Trans Witches are impacting the election (very Halloween, Sen. Cruz!). In the back half of the show they review access to the podcast and how to listen to it without ads....

Jonny interviews Mackie Obando who just released his first original queer-themed song and music video, "Desprederse de la Luna." You can check out the video here . In the back half of the show Jonny is joined by Heather to talk about the wild lies coming up as October Surprises and how they really don't seem to be working. At the center of most of the drama is misuse of new technologies. On this t...

Jonny and Heather lean into Banned Book Week with some contemplation about what illusion of control book bans give. In the back half of the show, they discuss the court cases on the Supreme Court's fall docket that are likely to impact the LGBTQ+ community. They find some hope that when these distractions from the real problems in the country by targetting queer and trans people finally are reveal...

Jonny and Heather check back in on the Trumpfoolery. Is it the end of the nation or the end of this authoritarian grab? White shoes? In this stormy political wheather, they check in on the double whammy LGBTQ+ students received this week as the Department of Education removes Title IX protections against discrimination for queer and trans students , and it is also firming up its federal loan limit...

Jonny and Heather welcome Juniper Oxford to the show. Juniper is the coordinator for Southern Illinois University's Paulette Curkin Pride Resource Center  and responsibe for planning the university's events for LGBTQIA+ History Month. We take this opportunity to check in on how the Resource Center and DEI programs, in general, are doing in Southern Illinois despite a national assault on such suppo...

Jonny and Heather welcome back Dan and Rey, who are visiting Southern Illinois again from Texas. They share their enthsiasm for the queer supporting communities of Southern Illinois and offer some insider perspectives on various political struggles in Texas. The four of them discuss Trumpapalooza, Ken Paxton, James Talarico, Governor Abbot, and the growing hopes that the blue side of purple Texas...

Jonny and Heather honor the legacy of Gloria Steinem. They note her significant contributions to women's rights as well as some slower points of development in her inclusivity with that struggle. They then turn from mourning Steinem to celebrating the birth of Heather O'Malley -- 58 years old, 25 of them living post transition. They use Heather's story to make the case for how trans rights are par...

Jonny amd Heather lament the recent loss of Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Peter Cullen. They review the significant contributions these performers have made to LGBTQ+ advocacy and identity. In the back half of the show, Jonny taps into Heather's military expertise to explain the consequesnces of some of the recent developments with the Pentagon, focusing initially on continued persecution of trans...

Jonny and Heather celebrate the 16th Birthday of Isn't it Queer (8/24) by leaning into the queer joy of our community. They extend an invitation to others to come on the show and share their passions and interests and informations about events and organizations. In the back half of the show, Heather interviews YouTube creators and anmiation producers Elijah " Not So Average Fangirl " and Mosco " W...

Jonny interviews local, former SIU research Professor, Kyle, who was the target last year of a Libs of TikTok smear campaign. With only Libs of TikTok's doctored screen shots, Kyle was put on administrative leave and charged by local police with indecent exposure. Locals community members made a web page called The Saluki Stroker, tracking down the sites of the screen shots and otherwise sensation...

Jonny and Heather bid farewell to summer, at least on an academic calendar. They posit that while things aren't great for the LGBTQ+ community in the US right now, there are plenty of places around the planet that demonstrate things could be worse. They then use this frame to examine how assaults on our rights aren't really working well lately while the pushback is getting stronger and more effect...

Heather is back from a very busy, very exhausting, very good weekend at Gen Con. She and Jonny touch base about the amazing out and proud queer and trans presence at the con. They then turn to the assertions of the current administration that don't stand up to evidentiary tests--from vandalism in the reflecting pool to Dr. Fauci as a disease wielding supervillain to the lasting impacts of puberty...

Heather and Jonny are barely surviving the latest heatwave in Southern Illinois. They seek comfort in some international Pride celebrations, despite the violence at the Berlin Pride March. In the back half of the show they demonstrate how pretty much all protests, legislation, and bigotry against LGBTQ+ people and concerns are motivated by patriarchy. The most toxic versions of that are finally st...

Jonny and Heather weigh in on Pete Hegseth's decision to mandate testosterone testing for all soldiers over the age of thirty and offer free testosterone therapy if they are deemed to be "low T." Yep, that is Defense Department sanctioned gender affirming therapy. But it is also pretty misguded for military preparation, driven by what seems to be Hegseth's vision of hypermasculine, buff male bodie...

Jonny is back from a meditation retreat this week while Heather is off at a writer's conference in Chicago. Still, they put together a show. Jonny recounts how flashfloods in Missouri resulted in a traumatic end to the retreat. This sets the stage for a reimmersion into the news, where nominally related stories of trauma and allegations impacting politcians caught his raw attention. In the back ha...

Jonny interviews Carbondale native, Ben. Ben was born in Carbondale and spent a significant chunk of his early life here before traveling to Peru and then settling down in Chicago. During CoVid, he returned to Carbondale. He and Jonny discuss their preference for being a rural queers and what queer even means, including neuroqueer and queer spirituality. In the back half of the show, Ben shares an...

Jonny and Heather review some of the recent Supreme Court decisions, celebating the surprisiningly good ones while also giving space to concerns and frustrations about decisions that immediately impact our lives as SCOTUS ties Title IX to "biological sex" and not gender, setting a dangerous precedent. In the back half of the show, they turn to evidence that a significant portion of the Democratice...

Jonny and Heather respond to data that suggests worldwide LGBTQ+ rights advanced in the 2010s but are stagnating in the 2020s. To put a little more hopeful spin on this news, they note how the anti-LGBTQ+ movements seem to be stagnating more recently, too. They start with the failures of the Trump Administration that have been piling up. In the back half of the show they turn to some international...

Jonny and Heather offer a brief recap of their Pride on the Strip, Carbondale PrideFest experiences before moving on to other festive events that happened this weekend. One such event on the White House lawn (next to the slimy green reflecting pool!) demonstrated how our current administration has normalized misgendering as a political insult. They contemplate that moment and point out other simil...

As part of Pride Month, Jonny and Heather conduct interviews with local LGBTQ+ advocates. In the front half of the shaow, Jonny interviews Father Jerry Anderson, author of Ordained by Angels; A Memoir of an AIDS Chaplain . Father Anderson, a native of Southern Illinoi and co-founder of The Episcopal Caring Response to AIDS (ECRA), will be giving a reading from his book at 11:30am this Sunday (June...

Jonny interviews local drag superstar Leah Fantasy about their life, their experiences growing up nonbinary and Southern Illinois, and their amazing performances in local venues. They discuss the vibe needed for this year's Pride and how to generate it. In the back third of the show, Heather and Jonny discuss the flexibility of labels in the Alphabet Soup and why we need to claim and deploy them g...

Heather and Jonny track a theme across recent stories impacting  LGBTQ+ communities that the smallness of a minority group severely limits its power. They examine several stories where a few people make a big difference, where a small local community beats a big cultural behemoth. They find queer joy in victories and hope in the ways isolating or targetting minority groups can also make them stron...

Jonny and Heather welcome summer on the other side of Memorial Day, remembering what this coming weekend is meant to recognize. The provide some updates on the Southern Illinois Pride plans in Carbondale for Saturday, June 13th. They then celebrate that Carbondale's Pride is not (as of now) being cancelled, as too manyothers are--including China's cancelling of Hong Kong's Pride festivities. Given...

Jonny and Heather face the summer with news of Southern Illinois Pride plans. This information has recently been circulated on local social media. In the process, of course, lots of anti-Pride community members have had...."interesting" things to say about Pride. Jonny and Heather remind them that their comments are public and turn to rebutting the common propaganda talking points critical of Prid...

Jonny and Heather dive into a series of headaches for the LGBTQ+ community, starting with the DOJ's investigation of 36 school districts in Illinois for teaching gender ideology. Connecting that story to many others in the news lately, they pursue the authoritarian tactic of manufacturing problems so that the supreme leader can provide solutions tat serve to consolidate power. They examine a host...