Gay men

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.

Jones lost countless friends to the AIDS epidemic. He became an activist after Harvey Milk's assassination: "Meeting Harvey, seeing his death, it fixed my course." Originally broadcast Nov. 29, 2016.

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."

As a black gay kid growing up in Texas in the 1990s, poet Saeed Jones remembers getting negative messages about his identity from every aspect of his life. It was around the time of Matthew Shepard's murder in Wyoming, and Jones felt alone and unsafe.

The recent biopic Rocketman painted a Hollywood version of Elton John's life, but a new memoir, Me, comes straight from the artist himself. In it, he describes how, as a young man, he was determined to enter the music business, in spite of some misgivings about rock 'n' roll in his household. As he tells Fresh Air, "My dad, of course, hated it."

Filmmaker Rodney Evans is still making movies, despite having lost much of his vision. His new documentary is about how he and three other blind or visually impaired artists continue to do their work.