

Outward: Slate's LGBTQ podcast
Slate Podcasts
Outward, Slate's queer podcast, is a whip-smart monthly salon in which hosts and guests deepen the audience’s understanding of queer culture and politics, delight them with unexpected perspectives, and invite listeners into a colorful conversation about the issues animating LGBTQ communities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 22, 2022 • 1h 16min
The Promise of Pride
It’s story time, fam! This month, Bryan, Christina, and Jules talk about whether—and why—we still need Pride. Every Pride is someone’s first, and to get that fresh perspective, the hosts spoke with Sammie Bennett, who just celebrated for the first time in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They then talk about their own memories and feelings about the annual queer gathering.Thanks to Alicia DeMaio for our first "Thots & Queries" segment. Here’s the them.us piece she referenced.Items discussed in the show:“The Battle Over Gender Therapy,” by Emily Bazelon in the New York Times MagazineJules’ Twitter threadJules’ Substack responsePostmates’ “Eat With Pride” ad campaignLeo Herrera’s Instagram story about this campaignChristina’s Slate story about a U-Haul truck full of Nazis who headed to a Pride celebration in Idaho.New York City Drag MarchGay AgendaBryan: Buzzfeed’s roundup of “This Pride Month” memesChristina: KaftkoJules: Read a banned LGBTQ bookThis podcast was produced by June Thomas.Please send feedback, topic ideas, and advice questions to outwardpodcast@slate.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 15, 2022 • 42min
Is Fire Island the Gay Rom-Com We've Been Waiting For?
This month, in honor of Pride, we’re bringing you extra episodes of Outward.This week, hosts Christina Cauterucci, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Bryan Lowder dig into the big gay movie of summer 2022: Fire Island. Directed by Andrew Ahn and written by Joel Kim Booster, who also appears in the film, Fire Island explores the magic of queer spaces like the titular enclave—along with the class and race disparities that so often beset them. The film, which also stars Bowen Yang, Margaret Cho, and Conrad Ricamora, is a gay resetting of Pride and Prejudice. Does it succeed? The hosts discuss this, and much more, in spoiler-filled detail.This podcast was produced by June Thomas.Please send feedback, topic ideas, and advice questions to outwardpodcast@slate.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 8, 2022 • 31min
Pride Month Special: A Pioneering Lesbian Photographer
This month, in honor of Pride, we’re going to be bringing you an Outward episode every week.Today, it’s a segment from a 2021 episode of Working, Slate's podcast about the creative process, in which June Thomas spoke with photographer Joan E. Biren, also known as JEB. In the interview, JEB discusses the creation, funding, and printing of her groundbreaking 1979 photobook Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, which was reissued by Anthology Editions in 2021. The Working episode was produced by Cameron Drews. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 1, 2022 • 26min
Pride Month Special: Supporting Trans Youth
This month, in honor of Pride, we’re going to be bringing you an Outward episode every week. You’ll still get the biggie on June 22, with Pride and Provocations, the Gay Agenda, and all the usual fun, but we’re also going to supply some shorter snacks of gay goodness every Wednesday.We’ve got some great things lined up--interviews, coverage of the big queer summer movie, and of course reflections on Pride--but we also want to share some great LGBTQ content from around the Slate podcast network.Today, it’s a segment from a recent episode of Mom and Dad Are Fighting, Slate’s parenting podcast. In light of the attacks on trans youth around the country, hosts Jamilah Lemieux, Zak Rosen, and Elizabeth Newcamp invited Outward’s own Jules Gill-Peterson onto the show to provide some historical context and offer advise on what people can do to support trans kids and their parents.The Mom and Dad Are Fighting episode was produced by Rosemary Belson and Jasmine Ellis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 18, 2022 • 1h 24min
Prisons in Queer History and Pop Culture
This month Bryan, Christina, and Jules explore the intersection of queer life and incarceration. How has America’s prison-loving penal system shaped our history and present, and how does that experience get channeled—or not—into the culture we make and consume? The hosts are joined by Hugh Ryan, author of the new book The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, which uses one infamous mid-century institution in New York’s Greenwich Village to return the overlooked lives of incarcerated women and transmasculine folks to our collective story, and to make a stirring case for prison abolition as a queer issue. Then they discuss how prison shows up in pop culture—and whether they’re entirely comfortable with those fantasies.Items discussed in the show:Selling SunsetTwo recent articles on phalloplasty: “How Ben Got His Penis,” by Jamie Lauren Keiles in the New York Times, and “My Penis Myself,” by Gabriel Mac in New YorkOriginal Plumbing“Madison Cawthorn Thrusting His Naked Body on Another Man’s Face Doesn’t Tell Us Much About His ‘Gayness,’ ” by Bryan in SlateNot Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men, by Jane WardThe Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, by Hugh RyanWhen Brooklyn Was Queer, by Hugh RyanHuey P. Newton’s 1970 speech on the women’s liberation and gay liberation movementsChained Heat 2Orange Is the New BlackGay AgendaChristina: Great FreedomJules: The Vice series TransnationalBryan: From Gay to Z: A Queer Compendium, by Justin Elizabeth SayresThis podcast was produced by June Thomas.Please send feedback, topic ideas, and advice questions to outwardpodcast@slate.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apr 20, 2022 • 1h 8min
Queer Families in Kindergarten and the Multiverse
This month Bryan, Christina, and Jules take a break from talking about the hostile legislation queer and trans people are fighting against to talk about what they’re fighting for. Brooklyn kindergarten teacher Eliza Cutler joins the hosts to share what it looks like when teachers are free to speak about LGBTQ lives in the classroom. Then they discuss the queer family drama at the heart of the new genre-bending, multiverse-hopping film Everything Everywhere All at Once. (NOTE: If you don't want to hear spoilers for Everything Everywhere All at Once, you can jump from the 33-minute mark to the 59-minute point, but come back after you've seen the movie. You don't want to miss this conversation.)Items discussed in the show:Robbie Pierce’s Twitter thread about the homophobic harassment his family endured while riding AmtrakQueers responding to homophobic legislation with … merchThe long life and sad demise of Bitch Media.They She He Me: Free to Be, by Maya Christina Gonzalez and Matthew SGMorris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, by Christine Baldacchino and Isabelle MalenfantJacob’s New Dress, by Sarah and Ian Hoffman and Chris CageIntroducing Teddy, by Jessica Walton and Dougal MacPhersonPugdog, by Andrea U’Ren“Everything Everywhere All at Once Is a Queer Masterpiece of Colossa Sincerity,” by Drew Gregory, in Autostraddle “Everything Everywhere All at Once Is an Emotional Gut Punch About Queer Erasure, Acceptance,” by Patrick Ryan, in USA Today“This One Stale Joke Won’t Let Everything Everywhere All at Once Be Great,” by Kyle Turner, in W“On Being Trans and Watching Everything Everywhere All at Once,” by Linda Codega, in GizmodoGay AgendaChristina: “Sex, Love, and Art in the Suburbs,” by Garth Greenwell, in EsquireBryan: “This Beach in Mexico Is an L.G.B.T.Q. Haven. But Can It Last?” by Oscar Lopez and Lisette Poole, in the New York TimesJules: Manhunt, by Gretchen Felker-MartinThis podcast was produced by June Thomas.Please send feedback, topic ideas, and advice questions to outwardpodcast@slate.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 23, 2022 • 1h 17min
The Trans Past, Present, and Future
Bryan, Christina, and Jules respond to the anti-trans attacks coming out of state legislatures across the country, particularly in Texas, where the governor and attorney general have tried to make caring for trans kids into a form of child abuse. Jules sketches out what a trans child’s life would look and feel like over the coming years as a result of these draconian bills and administrative attacks. Then they are joined by Michael Waters to discuss his recent piece for Slate about trans pioneer Barbara Ann Richards, who went to court in 1941 to legally change her name—and succeeded.Items discussed in the show:Lauren Groff discusses the writing of her novel Matrix on the podcast Women Who Travel “The GOP’s All-Out Assault on Trans People,” The Waves, March 3, 2022, featuring Jules Gill-Peterson and Evan Urquhart“Barbara Ann Richards Designed—and Then Demanded—the Life She Deserved,” by Michael WatersTrue Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, by Emily SkidmoreGay AgendaChristina: Start your own Dyke Night!Bryan: QueerSpace, a podcast from the National Air and Space MuseumJules: The 2022 Lambda Literary Award nominationsThis podcast was produced by Myron. Please send feedback, topic ideas, and advice questions to outwardpodcast@slate.com.Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Feb 17, 2022 • 1h 3min
Two Revivals: "No Promo Homo" and Shortbus
Christina, Bryan, and Jules discuss a proposed Florida bill that would ban all discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the state, and the 4K-restored re-release of John Cameron Mitchell’s senimal 2007 film Shortbus. The Gay Agenda includes an East Williamsburg trans enclave. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jan 20, 2022 • 1h 12min
Counting Queers, Queering Sequels
Christina Cauterucci and Bryan Lowder welcome our new third co-host, Jules Gill-Peterson, and talk to author Dr. Kevin Guyan about his new book Queer Data. The crew then explores the trans storylines and general weirdness of And Just Like That, the “next chapter” in the Sex and the City universe, before adding more items to the Gay Agenda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dec 23, 2021 • 1h 19min
Jingle All the Gay
Christina and Bryan discuss the finer points of new queer Christmas movies—like, how realistic is Netflix’s Single All The Way?—and why that harness joke in Lifetime’s Under The Christmas Tree was so jarring. We’re also joined by some special guests who share Prides and Provocations from the past year and explore Premonitions for 2022. We close the year with bell hooks and trans triumphs in the Gay Agenda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


