Coming Out Pod
310 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 518 ratingsComing Out Pod is a weekly podcast hosted by Lauren Flans where queer folks from all walks of life tell the tales of how they came out to friends, family, and the world at large! Because who doesn't love a coming out story?
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Episodes
Episode 291: Chloe Star
March 20, 2024 07:26 - 1 hour - 56.6 MBPop-punk/alt-rock artist Chloe Star is so obviously comfortable in her own skin that you would never know she struggled fiercely with her sexuality throughout her adolescence. Chloe's mother is Native American, and so Chloe grew up going back and forth between the radically different worlds of Los Angeles and her family's reservation. Some of Chloe's stories from this time are deeply relatable (such as Googling "am i gay quiz" and secretly having a huge crush on Kristen Stewart while all of h...
The Pod Is Going To Be Taking A Hiatus...
March 19, 2024 07:00 - 25 minutes - 23.1 MBLauren gives a transparent, hilarious, and WAY the f@#k too long explanation of why she is putting the podcast on hiatus at the end of March! Info and resources mentioned: - The pod's website is comingoutpod.com. That's where you'll find a link to search episodes by keyword, as well as multiple resources on the "Resources" page (including the virtual queer community Google doc and "Lauren’s List of Lighthearted LGBTQ+ Stuff with Positive Queer Portrayals!" media list). - Other queer, female-...
Episode 290: Leah Lax
March 13, 2024 07:43 - 1 hour - 62 MBAuthor and librettist Leah Lax ("Not From Here: The Song of America") shares a series of incredible stories in a truly one-of-a-kind episode of the podcast! Leah grew up as a Jewish genderqueer lesbian in Northern Texas, and struggled with the fact that she didn't understand how to "be a woman" in the intuitive way that all of her (straight) friends seemed to. So when she was approached by members of the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community at the age of sixteen, Leah felt "like somebody handed m...
Episode 289: Arohi Kumar
March 06, 2024 08:40 - 1 hour - 68.3 MBArohi Kumar has been a HERstories participant for the past several years, and in that time, Lauren has seen her confidence and happiness grow exponentially! Arohi (whose identifiers include transfemme, poly, and "bi enough") is a child of Indian immigrants, and the prevalence of male/female separation when she was growing up led to her feeling ostracized on both ends. When it came to attraction, Arohi knew she was attracted to girls, but describes the experience as wanting to be "attracted to...
Episode 288: Carmen Lagala
February 28, 2024 08:00 - 49 minutes - 45.3 MBLauren has a genuinely hilarious conversation with comedian and podcaster Carmen Lagala, who spills all the details of her recent coming out story! Carmen grew up in Vermont, which is arguably one of the very best states to be a queer woman (hiking; leftists; liberal arts colleges; you get it). Carmen was so sure that she *wasn't* queer, however, that when a lesbian rumor spread during her freshman year of high school, she actually came out to her family as straight. Carmen, who now identifie...
Episode 287: Maddy Kling
February 21, 2024 08:00 - 53 minutes - 49.1 MBWhen 23-year-old grad student Maddy Kling asked if she could interview Lauren for her project on coming out stories, Lauren jumped at the chance to sit on the other side of the mic! But not only that; the work Maddy was doing sounded so fascinating that Lauren asked if she would come on the podcast to discuss it! Maddy is getting her master's in Dance/Movement Therapy, and her project explores how DMT can help the queer community "by allowing them to tell their coming out stories through danc...
Episode 286: Tina Horn
February 14, 2024 08:50 - 1 hour - 71 MBIt's Valentine's Day, and the pod is serving up a hot 'n spicy episode with educatrix, writer, and former AVN-nominated director, Tina Horn! Regarding her sexuality, Tina says "as soon as I knew that I had a crush on Fox Mulder, I knew I had a crush on Dana Scully." Unfortunately, she was growing up in a small, homophobic town in Northern California, and so the majority of her early sexual partners were restricted to cis men. Tina categorizes those early experiences as "all right," but even a...
Episode 285: Chris Tompkins
February 07, 2024 08:06 - 1 hour - 68 MBLGBTQ-affirming therapist Chris Tompkins clearly remembers knowing by the age of six that he was gay. So when he was told that his six-year-old nephew was "not old enough" to understand that he had a gay uncle, it started Chris down a path that ultimately led to him a writing a book titled "Raising LGBTQ Allies: A Parent’s Guide to Changing the Messages from the Playground." Chris describes how his religious upbringing made him genuinely believe that if he put all his energy into becoming "th...
Episode 284: Tania De Rozario
January 31, 2024 08:03 - 57 minutes - 52.4 MBThe pod welcomes its first ever Singaporean guest, Tania De Rozario, whose memoir "Dinner on Monster Island" comes out next week! At the time that Tania was growing up in Singapore, positive representations of queer people were literally illegal on public television. Since this was long before streaming platforms and the prevalence of the internet, this meant that all of Tania's childhood teachings about "homosexuality" came from her Evangelical-convert mother. Things culminated in Tania bein...
Episode 283: Andie Main
January 24, 2024 09:18 - 50 minutes - 46.1 MBLauren gets into it with comedian Andie Main, who just released her aptly titled comedy album, "Rocky Mountain Bi!" Andie grew up in Portland's artsy district, and identifies as "classic '90s bi." She reveals the various cartoon characters who helped her realize her sexuality, discusses her adolescent passions ("I was a horse girl, and then I was a boob girl"), and details the path that led her to who she is today ("a divorced, 43-year-old bisexual woman who had dreams of Alanis Morissette as...
Episode 282: Julie Delporte
January 17, 2024 08:00 - 52 minutes - 48 MBMultidisciplinary author and artist Julie Delporte (they/she) was born in a village in the French countryside, and describes herself as "someone who is late in life." One of the ways in which this manifested was that Julie did not realize she was a lesbian until the age of thirty-five, which, as she says, "is not so old, but it felt so old." In her newly released graphic novel, "Portrait of a Body," Julie traces the arc of her coming out story through both text and illustrations, and the resu...
Episode 281: Sara Mossman
January 10, 2024 08:00 - 56 minutes - 51.8 MBWriter and filmmaker Sara Mossman grew up in Baltimore in the midst of a family dynamic that consisted of "a lot of dysfunction, a lot of chaos, a lot of people in the mix" (Sara is one of SIX children!). All of this led to her becoming emancipated from her family just before she turned fourteen...riiiiiight on the heels of also figuring out that she was gay. Suffice to say that Sara did not have an easy adolescence, but the saving grace came when she was accepted into a predominantly-female,...
Episode 280: Adario Mercadante
January 03, 2024 08:20 - 1 hour - 64.7 MBHAPPY NEW YEAR! The pod is kicking off 2024 in a big way with its first ever furry-identified guest! Comedian Adario Mercadante has been doing standup since the age of eighteen, and is truly one of the sweetest men alive. Like many '90s kids, Adario first discovered furry content on sites like LimeWire and Kazaa, and his fascination/titillation led him to further resources like Furcadia and Yiffstar. Adario not only details his full journey from pre-puberty to adulthood, but also answers seve...
Lez Hang Out Episode 613: Missed Queer-nections with Elle Mills
December 20, 2023 19:17 - 1 hour - 62.4 MBIt's POD SWAP day! Leigh and Ellie of Lez Hang Out thought Coming Out Pod's listeners might especially enjoy this episode of theirs from February 2023. Lez Hang Out Episode 613: Missed Queer-nections with Elle Mills Your eyes meet across the aisle in Trader Joe’s. Then, your fingers brush as you reach for the same container of oat milk. The moment passes, but you can’t help wondering, could she have been the one? This week Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with writer and...
Episode 279: Listener Mailbag 2023 with special guest NICOLE!
December 13, 2023 08:04 - 1 hour - 82.8 MBLauren and Nicole are reunited for the pod's *FIFTH* ANNUAL LISTENER MAILBAG!!! In this double-stuffed episode, we're taking on allllll of your burning questions with our usual #workwife candor! Hear our thoughts on if gaydar is real! Listen as we debate whether or not straight people should have to come out! Delight in our very different (BUT EQUALLY VALID) answers to "what's on your queer bucket list?" Nicole also gives her take on several poly-specific questions, including what she's learn...
Episode 278: Lindsay Hicks
December 06, 2023 11:34 - 1 hour - 60.9 MBIf you listened to last week's special episode about A Holiday I Do and found yourself thinking "gee, this is great, but I sure wish I knew Lindsay's coming out story..." then you're in luck, because this week Lindsay Hicks is BACK, and she is TELLING ALL! Lindsay (who uses bi and pan interchangeably) moved around a lot as a kid, so she was far less focused on things like crushes and dating than she was on simply keeping herself safe from bullying. It wasn't until she got to college and met h...
Episode 277: "A Holiday I Do" with Lindsay Hicks and Rivkah Reyes!
November 29, 2023 10:02 - 49 minutes - 45.6 MBNow that Thanksgiving is behind us, it's officially holiday movie season, and if you follow Lauren on Twitter, then you know that she is absolutely *obsessed* with made-for-TV Christmas movies. As such, she jumped at the chance to talk to former guest Rivkah Reyes (Episode 136) and upcoming guest Lindsay Hicks, who are the two leads of Tello Films' latest QUEER LADY CHRISTMAS MOVIE! In this special episode, Lindsay and Rivkah dish on what it was like filming A Holiday I Do in the coldest plac...
Episode 276: Andrew McCaskill
November 22, 2023 08:27 - 1 hour - 59 MBLauren has an eye-opening conversation with the VELVET-VOICED Andrew McCaskill, a LinkedIn Career Expert and 2023 brand ambassador for Nike's #BeTrue campaign! When LinkedIn conducted a study of LGBTQ+ professionals for Pride Month of last year, they were surprised to learn that more than half of the respondents polled said they hide their identity in the workplace. Andrew kicks off our in-depth discussion about coming out at work with his own personal story, which begins in a rural Mississip...
Episode 275: Erin Hoover
November 15, 2023 08:49 - 1 hour - 67.1 MBPoet and professor Erin Hoover self-identifies as "the parent of a donor-conceived child," and if you're wondering how she came to use that specific terminology, the thread of its evolution runs all the way through her recently-released collection, "No Spare People." Erin is currently based in Tennessee, and has lived in a number of places we might not think of as particularly "queer-friendly." Add to that the fact that she's chosen to parent on her own, and...let's just say she encounters a ...
Episode 274: Rich and Siobhan of The Poly (Pod)Cast
November 08, 2023 08:05 - 1 hour - 85 MBLauren aims to do Nicole proud as she hosts Rich and Siobhan of The Poly (Pod)Cast, a British/Australian couple who absolutely charm the PANTS off of her! (Just kidding; Lauren never wears pants when she records the pod.) Siobhan fully believed she was a straight woman when she met Rich in late 2020. Rich, on the other hand, had already had coming out journeys pertaining to both his bi/omnisexuality, as well as his gender identity ("I feel like I'm a collage of gender most of the time"). One ...
Episode 273: Moe Ari Brown, Hinge's Love and Connection Expert!
November 01, 2023 09:27 - 1 hour - 74.4 MBOver the next two months, Hinge's NFAQ (Not-so Frequently Asked Questions) will be highlighting the experiences of bisexual daters, and so we're having a bi-extravaganza this week on the pod with Hinge's new Love and Connection Expert, Moe Ari Brown! But Lauren didn't want to dive into these waters all by her (gay) lonesome, and so she's also joined by guest co-host Kyrsta Morehouse, whose debut collection of (very bisexual) poetry has just been released! Besides being a GODDAMNED DELIGHT, Mo...
Episode 272: Jahni Leggett
October 25, 2023 08:57 - 1 hour - 68.3 MBTomorrow is Intersex Awareness Day 2023, and Lauren has a guest whom she's wanted to have on the podcast ever since she saw her do an Insta Live for Intersex Awareness Day 2022! Jahni Leggett has a number of intersecting identities (fat! Black! someone with ADHD!), but describes her intersex identity as the foundation or "fixed point" that informs all of the others. Jahni was raised as a boy by a single father who had very heteronormative, machismo-tinged expectations for her...but in Jahni's...
Episode 271: Elle Forbes
October 18, 2023 09:31 - 1 hour - 57.3 MBThis week on the pod: Lauren sits down with L.A. LGBT Center facilitator *and* participant, Elle Forbes (they/them)! Elle identifies as bisexual, transfeminine non-binary, and aroace, so buckle up, everybody: we're talking three coming outs MINIMUM! Elle's journey contains its fair share of darkness, but now that they've fully stepped into their identity, their exuberance is palpable. Elle shares how coming out as bisexual "was a need; not a want," and explains why their gender realization to...
Episode 270: Parisa Akhbari
October 11, 2023 08:14 - 1 hour - 60.2 MBToday, October 11th, is National Coming Out Day, and the pod is celebrating with a *truly* delightful conversation with mental health therapist and writer, Parisa Akhbari! Parisa had an abstract fear of lesbianism throughout her early adolescence; enough so that she asked her mother at the age of eight if lesbians were "good people." But when her older sister came out a few years later, Parisa felt a huge sense of relief that "oh, it was HER the whole time - it wasn't me!" Parisa continued to...
Episode 269: Marshall John Blount
October 04, 2023 09:54 - 58 minutes - 53.1 MBNetflix's Sex Education recently dropped its final season, and with it came a new asexual character who - while groundbreaking - has proven to be quite divisive within the ace community. To that end, it seemed like the perfect time for Lauren to have a conversation with asexual activist Marshall John Blount, known online as the Gentle Giant Ace! Marshall was homeschooled by his mother from third grade onward, so he didn't directly experience the social pressures of high school dating. Even so...
Episode 268: Irina Rivkin
September 27, 2023 08:57 - 1 hour - 55.1 MBLauren has a beautiful conversation with singer-songwriter Irina Rivkin, who identifies as "a lesbian queer femme dyke with disabilities" as well as ambiamorous, which for her means "my heart is capable of loving more than one person...but also doesn't mean that I *must* be in multiple relationships." Irina's family had to flee Russia in the '70s, and subsequently settled in the U.S. as refugees when Irina and her twin sister were just five years old. But despite being in a safer country, Iri...
Episode 267: Tera Wozniak Stortz
September 20, 2023 07:33 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MBTera Wozniak Stortz, founder of the Queer Divorce Club, remembers one fleeting moment in high school when it ever-so-briefly crossed her mind that she might be a lesbian. For the most part, though, Tera thought that her lack of attraction to men simply meant that she was "broken." Like many in her position, Tera ended up in a long-term heteronormative marriage, and kept herself moving at such a breakneck pace that she never had time to truly examine her identity. But when Tera and her husband...
Episode 266: Amanda Slawinski
September 13, 2023 09:25 - 1 hour - 70 MB"Long-time listener, first-time guest" Amanda Slawinski's coming out journey began with a covert kiss behind a purposefully-closed door at the tender age of five...but then didn't pick up again until eighteen years later. Amanda identifies as queer, demisexual, and a "recovering Catholic," so it's no surprise that sex of any kind was NOT discussed in her family home (even the Gilmore Girls were frowned upon). Ironically, though, an unscripted moment during Catholic Mass the Sunday after marri...
Episode 265: Jupiter Zirkua
September 06, 2023 09:18 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MBMusician Jupiter Zirkua (she/they) describes her story as "a lot of bleak stuff," but with "a bookend to it that's really sweet," and she delivers on both promises. Raised in rural Florida by a single mother, Jupiter's first introduction to the idea of gender nonconformity was a kindergarten teacher at a Tampa Catholic school. But while Jupiter was aware of the pansexual aspect of her identity from a fairly early age, it would take years before she felt secure enough to truly begin engaging w...
Episode 264: Sarah Ravenscroft
August 30, 2023 08:39 - 1 hour - 62.3 MBIf you're an old school listener of the pod, then over the years you've probably heard Lauren and Nicole mention their SINGLE GREATEST SUCCESS STORY* as podcasters, which is the marriage of Episode 25 guest Vanessa Ravenscroft. Well, get ready for a lovey-dovey episode, because today Lauren and her guest co-host Vanessa are talking to the woman who made it all possible: baker, artist, and Vanessa's wife, Sarah Ravenscroft! Sarah hit the ground running by living every lesbian's dream (i.e., da...
Episode 263: Jenn Levine
August 23, 2023 08:59 - 1 hour - 57.7 MBAt sixteen years old, Jenn Levine sat in a room with her mother and was told by two doctors that she had an extra chromosome, and that because of that extra chromosome, she would never be able to have children. But that wasn't all: they also said that she shouldn't tell anyone about her "birth defect" because people wouldn't understand, and then closed out the conversation by saying "you'll probably never meet anybody else like you." What Jenn *wasn't* told that day was that she was intersex;...
Episode 262: Dianna Conley
August 16, 2023 07:20 - 59 minutes - 54.5 MBLauren sits down with voice actor and romantic/erotic audio narrator Dianna Conley, who identifies as bi/pansexual ("I saw The Mummy, and my answer was 'yes'"), agender, and neurospicy! Dianna's first kiss with a girl was in high school, but since she knew she was definitely attracted to boys, she was left more confused by the experience than anything else. That is, until she learned the word "bisexual" from a formative character on The O.C.! Dianna shares how, for her, "all clothes are a cos...
Episode 261: Lane Willis
August 09, 2023 08:08 - 1 hour - 61.3 MBLauren is joined by her friend and co-facilitator, Maggie Tielker (Episode 165), for an in-depth conversation with Lane Willis, whom Lauren and Maggie both know from the L.A. LGBT Center's HERstories group! Lane (they/them) is a *phenomenal* kindergarten teacher, who hopes their students will always remember them as "that one that wore the rainbow shoes." Lane knew that they "adored girls" as early as five years old, and also strongly identified with both Twiggy and Elton John. But a rushed m...
Episode 260: Lauren's College BFF!
August 02, 2023 07:43 - 1 hour - 64.2 MBFor her first episode all by her lonesome, Lauren wanted to bring on "a guest who felt like home." Enter Brooke Berry, Lauren's BFF from college, whose incredible life experiences run the gamut from starting an AIDS coalition with a nun at the age of twelve, to living in South Africa, to working with Angelina Jolie (DON'T FREAK OUT, NICOLE!). Even *more* impressive than these achievements, however, is the fact that Brooke was literally in the room for Lauren's first ever girl-girl kiss, which...
BONUS MINI-EPISODE!
August 01, 2023 07:53 - 23 minutes - 32.8 MBSo, okay; here's the deal: we talked SO much when we recorded Nicole's farewell episode that we ended up cutting almost half an hour from the version that we released last week (classic #workwives!). We ultimately decided that this particular twenty-four minute chunk didn't serve the true purpose of that ep - which was celebrating Nicole, our partnership, and the version of the pod that is "Coming Out with Lauren & Nicole" - but we also felt that the tangential discussion we'd had was importa...
Nicole's Final Episode: The End Of An Era (But Not The Podcast!)
July 26, 2023 07:00 - 1 hour - 94.7 MBThe moment is here, y'all: it's our final episode as Lauren & Nicole. So grab a glass of red wine and/or bottle of sparkling mineral water, and strap in as we take an equally hilarious and tearful stroll down memory lane; from the original tiny closet that we crammed Stephanie Beatriz into, to our posh podcasting studio, to our respective hot, sweaty closets that we've been recording in since we went virtual! Nicole shares what she's learned, what she's grateful for, and even a few things she...
Episode 258: Reverend Mark Montgomery
July 19, 2023 07:59 - 1 hour - 98.9 MBThis is Nicole's penultimate episode of the podcast, so we knew our guest had to be someone extra-special! For over a decade, this incredible human being has been extremely close to Nicole and her family; so much so that he performed Nicole and Gustav's wedding in Scotland, and Nicole's sister's Memorial Service. Now, after *countless* mentions on the pod over the years, we finally sit down with the man, the myth, the legend, the REVEREND: Mark Montgomery! Mark discusses his small town South ...
Episode 257: Pallavi Gunalan
July 12, 2023 07:47 - 55 minutes - 50.9 MBWe laugh our goddamned asses off with standup, writer, and biomedical engineer (yes, really!), Pallavi Gunalan, who wins Lauren over in the first sixty seconds by stating that she "would die for Pierro." Pallavi grew up in an Indian family in Utah, and only started coming to terms with her queerness in her late 20's ("I had just started wearing crop tops; I didn't know you could do that without a sari"). Pallavi made the bold choice to incorporate her newfound identity into her comedy almost ...
Episode 256: Tembe Denton-Hurst
July 05, 2023 08:10 - 1 hour - 59.3 MBWhen Tembe Denton-Hurst's fiancée gifted her a writing class, Tembe had no idea that the short story she turned in would eventually become "Homebodies," her debut novel that was published in May! A consummate writer, Tembe shares a hilarious rollercoaster of a coming out story that includes an "earth-shifting" look she exchanged with a friend's younger sister, and a highly-relatable series of "deeply one-sided, ill-fated crushes." Tembe also discusses how, at just twenty years old, she and he...
Episode 255: Rain Valdez
June 28, 2023 07:57 - 1 hour - 68.1 MBWe're closing out Pride Month in a big way with Emmy-nominated actress, writer, and producer, Rain Valdez (Razor Tongue; Transparent)! Rain, who describes herself as a heterosexual transgender woman, was born in the Philippines, and initially raised by her incredibly affirming grandparents. Things only changed when she moved with her mother and stepfather to Guam, and discovered that the people there were considerably less accepting than those in her home country. At the age of nineteen, Rain...
Episode 254: Gender Without Identity with Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini
June 21, 2023 07:38 - 1 hour - 115 MBHoly hell, do we have a PIPING HOT EPISODE for you! When previous guest Avgi Saketopoulou and her partner Ann Pellegrini (both practicing psychoanalysts and faculty members at NYU) received an award for an academic article they co-authored, they were thrilled to find out that their paper would be published in a prestigious journal. They spent the following year working closely with the editors to revise their article for publication...only to be told at the last minute that they would be requ...
Episode 253: Briana Mills
June 14, 2023 07:55 - 1 hour - 90 MBTherapist and advocate Briana Mills was born with an extremely rare form of muscular dystrophy, and from a very early age, everyone but her mother reinforced the ableist idea that the world would never expect much from her. Throughout her youth, Briana didn't want anything to do with her disability; all she wanted was to fit in. But her participation in a youth leadership forum for marginalized students not only changed the way she viewed herself, it made her want to educate others. Briana sh...
Episode 252: Carolyn Bergier, REDUX!
June 07, 2023 08:49 - 1 hour - 68.9 MBWE MADE IT TO PRIDE MONTH, Y'ALL! For our first episode of the *actual* happiest season (sorry, KStew), we're rejoined by comedian and podcaster extraordinaire, Carolyn Bergier, who was first on the pod all the way back in Pride of 2019! When we last spoke with Carolyn, she was two years into her second marriage, and described herself as a "serial monogamist." Well, suffice to say there's been a big change to the latter half of that sentence, because two years ago, Carolyn and her wife Cecili...
Episode 251: Cat Alvarado
May 31, 2023 07:20 - 1 hour - 62.5 MBHot on the heels of her newly-released debut comedy album "Off-White," we talked to Nicaraguan-American comedian and writer, Cat Alvarado! Growing up in a mostly Spanish-speaking household, Cat always felt more Latina...and yet more often than not, she was perceived by her own community as "a white girl." Needless to say, Cat's dawning realization that she was bisexual only enhanced her experience of straddling two different worlds. Cat describes the dismal Vegas wedding she went through with...
Episode 250: Holly Cinnamon
May 24, 2023 07:43 - 1 hour - 77.7 MBActor/singer-songwriter Holly Cinnamon (Succession, Daredevil) recently released the single "Small Town Queer," and in a true case of impeccable timing, we just so happened to catch her while she's briefly back in her rural Canadian hometown! Holly (she/they) weaves a tale that has it all: a childhood obsession with Barbra Streisand! Coming to terms with your sexuality on a camping trip! Making your pregnant high school biology teacher a Feist mixtape! Holly also shares how they processed a t...
Episode 249: Shenuque Tissera
May 17, 2023 08:07 - 50 minutes - 46.2 MBLauren talks to her CHARMING AND HILARIOUS friend Shenuque Tissera, a New York-based actor and standup who identifies as a genderqueer pansexual! Shenuque (he/they) grew up in a Sri Lankan Catholic family on Staten Island, and remembers the concept of masculinity making him uncomfortable as far back as childhood. This didn't get any easier when he started attending an all-boys Catholic high school, and so Shenuque learned to just keep his head down, and try to blend in with the machismo aroun...
Episode 248: Martha Marion, REDUX!
May 10, 2023 07:48 - 1 hour - 69.4 MBAt long last, Episode 40 guest Martha Marion is back to talk about her all *new* set of identifiers, which include "solo-poly-my-way" and "Everybody from Ted Lasso can get it!" Martha discusses the excitement she experienced getting to be "a publicly queer person," and shares how she felt like, in coming out, she escaped a straitjacket, only to discover "there's twenty more straitjackets on under here?!" Martha also describes her quest to replace the relationship escalator with a playground, ...
Episode 247: Nicole's Dad!
May 03, 2023 07:23 - 1 hour - 55.7 MBIf you're a longtime listener of the pod, then you probably remember alllllll the way back in Episode 17 when Nicole's mom joined us to tell Nicole's coming out story from her own point of view as a parent. Well, it took us four-and-a-half years and 230 more episodes, but we've finally got a matching set of Pacents: today's guest is none other than Nicole's DAD! Paul Pacent discusses his Italian-American Catholic(ish) upbringing on Long Island, and how having (closeted) gay friends in the '60...
Episode 246: Burak Yilmaz
April 26, 2023 07:41 - 55 minutes - 51.2 MBBurak Yilmaz grew up in a very small town in Turkey and was best friends with his beautiful, glamorous mother: she taught him fashion, makeup, and hair, and would dress him in outfits to match her. But when he was five years old, Burak's mother left, launching him into a real-life Cinderella story, complete with a literal wicked (read: abusive) stepmother. In addition to his stepmother, Burak also endured abuse at the religious boarding school he was shipped off to, later documenting his expe...
Episode 245: Rae McDaniel
April 19, 2023 08:21 - 1 hour - 56.7 MBNicole is once again single-handedly manning the ship for a conversation with Rae McDaniel (they/them), a non-binary therapist, certified sex therapist, coach, Transgender Diversity and Inclusion Educator, AND author of the upcoming book "Gender Magic: Live Shamelessly, Reclaim Your Joy, & Step Into Your Most Authentic Self" -- talk about a multi-hyphenate! Rae grew up the adopted child of fundamentalist Southern Baptist missionary puppeteers (!!) in rural Louisiana, got married very young to...