It’s Here! It’s Queer! A Pride Podcast Playlist!
The past, present, and future of queerness in thirteen podcasts
June, when cities around the world come together for Pride celebrations, is a good time to remember that there’s no one way to be out and proud. LGBTQ+ people are a part of every community, and we’re building a bunch of our own as well. This playlist scratches the surface of queer experience, with shows about identity, history, and the world we live in, all driven forward by queer creators and voices. We hope this playlist brings you the kind of joy, support, adventure, and answers that you seek this month, and every month after.
This playlist was compiled by Galen Beebe, Elena Fernández Collins, Hannah Rosenfeld, and Dana Gerber-Margie.
Queery
In host Cameron Esposito’s second podcast, she pivots from stand-up comedy to long-form interviews on the nature of identity. In each episode, Cameron spends a meandering but intense hour with her guests, who range from ultra-famous queers like Lena Waithe and Margaret Cho to activists working behind the scenes for issues like haircuts for homeless queer youth and disability awareness. The guests explore how their thinking about their own gender and orientation has developed over time and how it intersects with other identities like race, occupation, and where they’re from. Cameron is a comedian, and the interviews have moments of levity, but her real talent as a host is in creating a warm, welcoming queer space in which the guests can open up about difficult and deeply personal topics. (Recommended by Hannah)
Start with: Andrew Gurza
Making Gay History
Making Gay history showcases archival tape of interviews with pioneers of LGBTQ rights movements that host Eric Marcus first collected in the early 90s. It spans the decades before Stonewall to our more recent history, to preserve the stories of the social groups and political movements that created the foundation for LGBTQ life today. The podcast brings figures from our past alive complete with their day-to-day struggles and triumphs. The first time I listened through it, I cried almost every episode, the second time, it filled me a fierce determination to remember our history and continue the fight. (Recommended by Hannah)
**Content warning: Making Gay History does not include content warnings at the top of its episodes, but several of them include mentions of suicide or attempted suicide.
Start with: Sylvia Rivera
#GoodMuslimBadMuslim
#GoodMuslimBadMulsim is one-part celebration and one-part gallows humor about the Muslim female experience in America. The concept started with a twitter joke between hosts Taz Ahmed and Zhara Noorbaksh about the impossibly contradictory definitions that Muslims and non-muslims have for what it means to be a “good Muslim.” Four years in, they’ve somehow managed to maintain the hilarious and jovial tone of two best friends trading increasingly elaborate tweets, even as they integrate thoughtful conversations about their fears and experiences. After the Pulse shooting, Zhara came out as bi on the show and tackled the topic of bi visibility as well as her experience in dealing with both her community’s perception of her sexuality and non-Muslims’ perception of how her community would treat her. (Recommended by Hannah)
Start with: Secrets & Safety
Gender Reveal
In the podcast Gender Reveal, host and “resident gender detective” Molly Woodstock interviews activists, artists, educators, comedians, and all sorts of people who identify as genderqueer, non-binary, trans, and/or agender. Molly, a genderqueer journalist, found that they were always interested in learning from others about their experiences and insights into their world of gender, and started this show to lay it all out. Topics and interviewees are wide-ranging, from covering current political and cultural issues to answering Q&As about life in the gender spectrum. (Recommended by Dana. Editorial note: Molly Woodstock was previously misgendered using “she” pronouns in this paragraph. We apologize for this oversight, and the irony isn’t lost on us that we were wrong in an article about pride. We will do better in the future to always check and verify preferred pronouns.)
Start with: Gender 101
Nancy
Kathy Tu and Tobin Low are the two queer Asian hosts for this narrative nonfiction podcast out of WNYC that will delight you and also make you cry. They collect stories and interviews from queer people about significant moments in their lives and in the life of the wider community, often tying it together with current events, like the Pulse shooting, or commonly shared events, like the moment of realizing you’re queer. It’s heartfelt, tender, with the balance of the hilarious and the serious. (Recommended by Elena)
Entry episode: Like Two Ken Dolls Being Smashed Together
Love & Luck
Love & Luck is the queer audio drama I never knew I needed. Kane and Jason steadily fall in love over voicemails, while building a safe and protective haven for their queer community with a bit of magic on their side. Brought to life by disabled trans creator Erin Kyan and his partner, Lee Davis-Thalbourne, Love & Luck aims to subvert the Bury Your Gays trope with a joyous queer power fantasy that is inclusive and growing towards an intersectional cast of characters and actors. I’ve not only heard myself here, I’ve heard people I know here, I’ve heard my family here. Love & Luck’s greatest strength is the way it seemingly easily creates a community and a life you feel welcomed into. (Recommended by Elena)
Start with: First Date
Strange Fruit
In Strange Fruit, hosts Dr. Kaila “Doc” Story and Jamison Gardner interview academics, educators, writers, activists, and other experts in the fields of politics, pop culture, and black gay life. It’s the perfect mix of informal chatting and academic insight that airs on WFPL in Kentucky. (Recommended by Galen)
Start with: In Search of Big Freedia
Kalila Stormfire’s Economical Magick Services
Kalila Stormfire is just trying to rebuild her life and her business as a witch and healer. This beautiful urban fantasy podcast centers on a queer Latinx protagonist in Kalila, which is written, voiced, and produced by similarly queer and Latinx creator Lisette Alvarez. As of episode 8, Lisette has written in a Black enby second character, Desiree, voiced by Black non-binary photographer Zayn Thiam. I have cried for Kalila’s hurdles, and have often come away feeling a little more at peace each time, achieved through Lisette’s varied vocal talents and gentle sound design. As a bonus, you’ll be humming the theme song all day after listening. (Recommended by Elena)
Start with: Case One: Transformation
How to Be a Girl
How to Be a Girl follows the life of a mom and a young daughter, living in the northwest U.S. The daughter, M, is trans, and since the podcast began in 2014, a lot has changed. She’s transferred schools. She’s gained friends and lost them. And she’s grown up from a little kid to an almost middle schooler. The show itself is a sparse but evocative musing on what it means to raise a trans child, to be a trans child, and, of course, to be a girl. (Recommended by Galen)
Start with: Mama, I’m a girl
Monsters Out of the Closet
This is an anthology of horror fiction and literary work, including songs, poetry, audio plays, and excerpts from opera, by independent queer creators from across multiple spectrums. The variety here is breathtaking, with every episode focused on a central theme, and often how it relates to living as a queer person. The authors and creators are all part of the LGBTQ+ community in some fashion, and this is exactly the kind of kaleidoscopic representation we’re looking for in horror, the largest counterculture in fiction. (Recommended by Elena)
Start with: Journeys
The Read
I’ve always assumed that The Read’s name actually refers to the segment of the show by the same name where the hosts each choose a topic upon which to unleash the sharp and mighty power of their displeasure, but honestly, if you name a topic, Kid Fury and Crissle will deliver a scathing read. Each week, the hosts, two black, gay, New York transplants, celebrate black excellence, dig in on recent celebrity news, vent about companies they have been wronged by, and answer some truly exceptional listener questions. Examples of listener topics include how to dump a cousin who caught feelings, and whether to tell your BF that he needs to wash his genitals (spoiler: the answer is emphatically yes). Pause the podcast before drinking water, because you never know when The Read will have you gasping for air. (Recommended by Hannah)
Start with: Say No to F**k Boys
The Bright Sessions
There’s a reason The Bright Sessions is often the first port of call for queer representation recommendations, and it’s because the design and care taken in these characters is its biggest strength. This is an audio drama about people going to therapy — a very special kind of therapy, for people with special powers. This podcast, which was also advised by a psychologist during writing, brought us character-driven stories with some truly astonishing sound design, and recently released their finale on June 13th. But don’t worry — there are bonus episodes, two spin-offs, three books, and hopefully a TV show in the works. The Bright Sessions is a kind and thrilling story of a spectrum of queer people, of mental health diagnoses and progress, and of building a community, in- and out of universe. (Recommended by Elena)
Entry episode: Patient #12-D-10 (Sam)
Queer as Fiction
Queer as Fiction brings together three queer, millennial women who met while working at Buzzfeed to read queer female and non-binary erotica and write fanfics. It’s refreshing to listen to a show that is unabashedly about queer female sexuality, but the actual erotica is just a jumping-off point from which the hosts, Amanda Holland, Kirsten King, and Ashly Perez, recall personal stories (like how Kristen is very forward about first kisses), ponder important questions (like what differentiates the grinder from the grind-e on the dance floor), and remind us that consent is as sexy as Cate Blanchett. Queer as fiction is one of those podcasts that develops recurring jokes, so you’ll benefit from starting at the beginning, but if erotica is not your jam, note that they make a format switch starting with episode 7 to focus solely on teasing each other and writing fan fiction based on listener prompts. (Recommended by Hannah)
Start with: Make Them Shine
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