LGBTQ+ Issues

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."

Twins, singer-songwriters, and LGBTQ icons Tegan and Sara talk about their tumultuous high school years. It's the subject of their new memoir and a new recording.

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.

Ever since he was a little boy, Yannick Nézet-Séguin knew he wanted to be a conductor. He likens the feeling to something "almost like a religious call." "Making music in the group is what animates me," he says.
Now 44, Nézet-Séguin is the music director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra, two of America's most storied musical institutions.

For about 48 hours in December, Kevin Hart was slated to host the 2019 Academy Awards. Then Hart was called out for homophobic jokes and tweets he made in 2010, and the Academy asked him to apologize.

Hart insisted that he already had apologized. Finally, after some back and forth, Hart stepped down from hosting, saying he didn't want to be a distraction.

Hudson lived a double life as a Hollywood heartthrob and a closeted gay man. Biographer Mark Griffin says Hudson's death from AIDS in 1985 was a turning point in public awareness of the epidemic.

Desiree Akhavan's new film, based on Emily Danforth's 2012 young adult novel, centers on a high school girl who's sent to a Christian conversion center after she's caught kissing her girlfriend.

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."

From intestinal distress to family dysfunction, writer David Sedaris has spent decades sharing some of the most intimate aspects of his life. Still, there are some topics that make him uncomfortable.

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.

Dan Diamond, who covers the Dept. of Health and Human Services for Politico, says the number of HHS leaders who previously worked in the anti-abortion and anti-LGBT movement is "unusual and notable."

Growing up in Pennsylvania, actor Jonathan Groff was a Disney-obsessed kid who dressed up as Mary Poppins and Cinderella and dreamed of one day performing on Broadway.

Author David Mendelsohn says having his 81-year-old father in the college seminar he was teaching on Homer's Odyssey led to an unexpected bonding.

Nearly 30 years ago, Hersch was among the first jazz musicians to come out as both gay and HIV positive. His memoir looks back on that time, as well as the time he spent in a medically induced coma.

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.

Longtime activist Cleve Jones reflects on his decades in the LGBT movement, beginning with the 1970s when he first moved to San Francisco.

Woodson won the National Book Award for young people's literature in 2014 for her memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, and is a finalist for another NBA this year. Originally broadcast Dec. 20, 2014.