LGBT Issues & History

Sarah McBride was the first transgender person to speak at the political convention of a major party. Now she's the spokesperson for the LGBTQ rights organization the Human Rights Campaign.

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.

Growing up, punk rocker Laura Jane Grace always felt conflicted about gender. She tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that she felt like two "twin souls" were warring inside of her, fighting for control. "I thought that I was quite possibly schizophrenic," she says.

Nicole Maines, who is transgender, is a young woman who filed and won a discrimination lawsuit against her school district, after she was forbidden to use the girls' bathroom.

Kylar Broadus is a lawyer and activist and the first openly transgender person to testify before the U.S. Senate.

The strategy of going to the Supreme Court to challenge Proposition 8 was controversial within the gay-rights movement. Now, Jo Becker's new book is proving to be controversial as well.

Cucumber tells the adventures of a middle-aged gay man; Banana is a series of short stories. Russell T. Davies, who made Queer As Folk, says the titles came from a scientific institute in Switzerland.

In Gay Berlin, Robert Beachy describes the rise of a gay subculture in the 1920s and '30s, how it contributed to our understanding of gay identity and how it was eradicated by the Nazis.

Charles Blow says he was 7 years old when he was sexually abused by a cousin. His new memoir, Fire Shut Up In My Bones, is about what he says happened, his recovery and his bisexuality.