Radiotopia Celebrates Pride
Some of Radiotopia’s core values include supporting underrepresented voices, protecting equality and human rights and telling thoughtful stories from unique, often neglected perspectives. Our podcasts have produced an abundance of episodes over the years exploring, celebrating and lamenting LGBTQ issues. To celebrate Pride Month, we’ve compiled a few of them into a playlist — take a listen. Happy Pride!
99% Invisible, Remembering Stonewall
It started with a place called the Stonewall Inn. Gay bars had been raided by police for decades. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people had been routinely arrested and subjected to harassment and beatings by the people who were meant to protect them. But one night, in this place called the Stonewall Inn, when the police stormed in to continue their abuse, the clientele fought back.
The Allusionist, Pride
How the word came to be chosen for LGBTQ Pride. Activist and publisher Craig Schoonmaker tells the story.
The Allusionist, 56. Joins — The vocabulary for sex and associated body parts is tricky to navigate in many ways — but even more so if you are trans or gender non-binary.
The Bugle, Sochi Special
Andy and John report on Sochi — where Vlad Putin should be celebrating just how amazingly gay the Olympics are, rather than getting all homophobic.
Criminal, P.D.I.D.
Patti Hammond Shaw is a transgender woman. She’s legally female on her birth certificate and driver’s license, and has been since 1993. But when she was arrested in 2009, male officers strip-searched her in front of male detainees, and held her overnight in a men’s cellblock. Patti hired a lawyer and fought back. Her case was instrumental in changing how the police process and detain transgender individuals in Washington, D.C.
The Heart, First
The first time is a threshold. On one side is the world as you know it, and on the other side is the unknown.
The Heart- My Everything, My Bear
In a suitcase full of books and papers, there is a little notebook with a bear sitting alone in a hot air balloon. This journal is one of the only things Alex saved when they got rid of all their possessions and moved to Ohio. The journal is filled with accounts of the life and the love they left behind.
The Kitchen Sisters Present, The Making of the Homobile
The Kitchen Sisters ride the nightshift with The Homobile. Homobiles is a non-commercial, volunteer, 24/7 ride service created for the LGBTQRXT and transgender community and others around San Francisco who feel the need safe, dependable rides, outside traditional services. Homobiles is for people who feel at risk because they don’t conform to sexual or gender norms and have been targets of rudeness or shame or violence.
The Kitchen Sisters Present, 21 — The Secret (and not so Secret) Life of Theresa Sparks
Theresa Sparks, one of San Francisco’s most respected and outspoken transgender activists tells her truth, that she was walking around in the wrong suit for 50 something years.
Love + Radio, Understood as to Understand
Carey believed she was assigned the wrong gender, but transitioning wasn’t how she expected.
The Memory Palace, A White Horse
The history of the White Horse bar in Berkeley, CA. Established in 1933, the White Horse is the oldest gay bar in the US.
Millennial, Long Distance Love Story
After 10 years, two people living 4,500 miles apart have to decide how and when they will physically live in the same place.
The Mortified Podcast, Jesse: My Two Moms
What happens when you live in fear of everyone in school finding out your parents are gay?
The Mortified Podcast, 81 Diary of a Trans Man: Confessions of Kelly Shortandqueer
A man shares the diaries he kept as an awkward adolescent girl.
Radio Diaries, Teenage Diaries Revisited: Amanda
At the age of 17, Amanda knew she was gay. But her parents kept insisting she’d grow out of it. Today, a lot has changed in the country, and within her own family. 16 years later, Amanda goes back to her parents to find out how they came to accept having a daughter who is gay.
Song Exploder, Perfume Genius — Slip Away
Mike Hadreas has been making music under the name Perfume Genius since 2008. In May 2017, he put out his fourth album, No Shape, to widespread critical acclaim. In this episode, Mike breaks down the song Slip Away. Host Hrishikesh Hirway also spoke with producer Blake Mills, who also plays on the track, and recording engineer Shawn Everett about the unusual way the song was recorded.
Strangers, American Mormon — International Mr. Leather
A Mormon boy grows up to become “International Mr. Leather,” which is the “Miss Universe” equivalent of the leather fetish world, and he’s forced to acknowledge some surprising parallels between his childhood church and the kinky gay, male leather world.
Strangers, Two Men and a Baby
Two young men receive a surprise delivery. And it’s a newborn.
The Truth, The Talk
A father comes to the rescue when three teenagers take things too far.
The West Wing Weekly, 1.13: Take Out the Trash Day (with Senator Bob Casey and Liza Weil) — This discussion comes close on the heels of the massacre in Orlando. Hosts Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway asked Sen. Bob Casey about the current state of hate crime legislation. They also talked to Liza Weil about her role as Karen Larson, as well as the executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
