LGBT Issues & History

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.

Meaker wrote the lesbian pulp novel Spring Fire in 1952, and was surprised when it sold 1.5 million copies. She went on to write other lesbian-themed books under pen names. Originally broadcast 2003.

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.

Michael Arceneaux's new book, I Can't Date Jesus, is a collection of essays about his early years. Beyoncé, he says, taught him a valuable lesson: "Just be yourself and be very good at what you do."

The celebrated writer transitioned from male to female in 1972 at the age of 46. In 1989, Morris told Terry Gross that she had shed "a lot of the emotions and the experiences of both genders."

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.