LGBTQ+ Issues

Linda Simpson performed in and chronicled the drag scene in the '80s and '90s, taking some 5,000 photos of performers. She calls Tennessee's anti-drag legislation "ridiculous."

ARI SHAPIRO – one of the hosts of NPR’s All Things Considered. He’s written a new memoir about moving between different worlds. He’s traveled the world as a journalist and has sung around the world with the group Pink Martini. He does a cabaret act with actor Alan Cumming.

Bella DuBalle says the legislators behind a new Tennessee law criminalizing public drag shows don't understand the art: "They think that every drag performer is doing something hypersexual or obscene." We talk with the native Tennessean about the law, performing for kids, and how her livelihood and safety are at risk.

The New Yorker recently published Mallon's diary excepts detailing life in Manhattan in the '80s. His new novel, Up With the Sun, is based on the life of a little-known actor who was gay and closeted.

Booster's film Fire Island, which he wrote and stars in, was inspired by the Jane Austen novel. The movie is a rom-com about a group of gay friends and explores racism and classism in their community.

The comic, actor and writer opens up about his name, his family tree and his sexual orientation in a new HBO special. "The more honest I am, the freer I am," Carmichael says.

In the memoir, The Beauty of Dusk, Frank Bruni chronicles the changes to his vision and the adaptations he's had to make in his work, personal life and attitude. The book also profiles a number of other people who've survived and thrived in ways that Bruni says are profoundly instructive.

The Tony Award-winning actor previously wrote about his childhood in Scotland and his abusive father. Cumming's new memoir centers on love, sexuality, career and mental health.

Billy Porter won an Emmy for his starring role on Pose, an FX series set in the underground gay and trans ball culture of the late '80s and '90s. Porter grew up in the Pentecostal church convinced that he would be damned for being gay. It wasn't until he was introduced to the world of theater in sixth grade that he began to imagine a different future.

In 1977, Spong became one of the first American bishops to ordain a woman into the clergy. In 1989, he was the first to ordain an openly gay man. Spong died Sept. 12. Originally broadcast in 1996.

McCraney's script was adapted into the Oscar-winning film. David Makes Man, now in season 2, begins with a Miami boy whose mother struggles with addiction, and has echoes of McCraney's own childhood.

Bechdel's new graphic memoir is about her lifelong obsession with exercise. She says she has a "predisposition of being extremely self-conscious and very caught up in my head" — and exercise helps.

Carlile traces her path to country stardom in the new memoir, Broken Horses. To date, she's won six Grammys, including back-to-back wins for best country song in 2020 and 2021.

Morris, who died Nov. 20, transitioned to female in 1972 when she was 46. She later reflected on gender in her memoir, Conundrum. Originally broadcast in 1989.

Dew, who died May 22, wrote intimately about family relationships in both fiction and nonfiction. She spoke to Terry Gross in 1994 about The Family Heart, her memoir about learning her son was gay.

Kramer, who died May 27, was an early advocate for aggressive research into the HIV virus. He co-founded both the Gay Men's Health Crisis and the protest group ACT UP. Originally broadcast in 1992.

Writer Michael Arceneaux has a tongue-in-cheek message for young people right now: "Please don't be as much of a mess as I was."

What does it mean to be a woman who had a boyhood? That's the question LGBTQ activist Jennifer Finney Boylan set out to explore her new memoir, Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs.

Lyon, who died April 9, was an outspoken activist for gay rights and the co-founder, with Del Martin, of America's first national lesbian group, the Daughters of Bilitis. Originally broadcast in 1992.