Suzie Kruger felt like she just fell into the role, but has maintained one of the most impressive careers organizing Adult Parties across London Europe and the rest of the world. Join Mike on a journey with icon, Suzie Kruger as she tells us all about her trials and tribulations at the vibrant center of the UK sex club scene.…

In this heartening episode, join Mike as he engages with Mohsin Zaidi, a passionate lawyer, LGBTQ activist, and best-selling author of "A Dutiful Boy". Learn about Mohsin's remarkable journey from a poor London neighborhood to his rise as a celebrated lawyer amidst the challenges and triumphs of growing up as a gay Muslim. Gain deeper insights into…

It's an honour to have Peter Tatchell on the podcast, a fearless LGBTQ and human right's activist who's launched social movements the world over including in some of the most politically dangerous countries. He and Mike talk early life, influences and trajectory and his own gay journey both in Australia and in the UK, as well as his work founding O…

Steve Gillon recently retired following 40 years as a professor of American history at some of the most prestigious universities in the US and UK where his students appreciated his dedication to storytelling even more than his in-depth knowledge of history. He also served as long-time spokesperson for the History channel on A & E cable network. Lis…

In her epic roller-coaster of a memoir, "This Time For Me" Alexandra Billings muses on her unlikely journey as an accomplished actor and performer as well as her other lives in sex work, as a HIV positive activist, not to mention a huge LGBTQIA+ icon. Join Mike and Alexandra as she dishes about what she thinks of the next generation of queer activi…

Barney Frank represented Massachusetts in Congress from 1982 to 2012, thirty years in which he was one of the most powerful, smartest, and wittiest politicians in DC. He was also the first LGBTQ Congressman to voluntarily come out while in office, a highly controversial move in 1987 during the height of the AIDS crisis. I interviewed Barney remotel…

Today the accidental gay historian interviews a young, credentialed historian illuminating gay history and actively working for representation on TV and beyond. Eric Cervini has been and continues to be incredibly busy; having written a NYT Best Selling and Pulitzer Prize finalist book in 2020, writing and producing "The Book of Queer" TV series in…

We're lucky this week to be joined by Barabara Pomo, staunch ally. Shaped by the loss of her older gay brother to AIDS in the late 1980s, Barbara Poma has become an integral part of the LGBTQ community. First, she bought and managed the Pulse Disco in Orlando, Fla., turning it into a multi cultural haven for queers and their families and after a tr…

Iconic photographer Stanley Stellar, 77, has been documenting queer life and male nudes since 1976. When he began, most media outlets wouldn’t even feature images of men with their clothes on. Best known for his street photography, Stanley was present and shooting during many milestones in gay history, including the Christopher Street piers, gay pr…

We're lucky enough to have as out guest, Lilly Ann Velez, a 39 yo Ecuadorian woman of trans experience. She explains misconceptions and describes the spectrum of trans experience, all while sharing with us the almost 30 year journey she's taken to becoming the woman she is today.By Mike Balaban

In 2010, three-time All-American collegiate wrestler Hudson Taylor slapped a gay-equality sticker on his headgear before a match, leading to an interview with OutSports, an LGBTQ media outlet. Afterwards, he heard from 2,000 mostly closeted athletes who were moved to see a straight ally standing up for them. After that, Hudson founded Athlete Ally,…

Khalleed Ahmed and his family fled civil war in Somalia, spent eight years in Kenyan refugee camps, and finally were given asylum in the United States. Join us as we listen to Khalleed share his journey to becoming an openly gay, Islamic, cardiac surgeon and an inspiration for others living in countries where they can't be themselves (Part 1 of 2 i…

Dastan Kasmamytov, a 30 y.o. Kyrgyzstani, is an LGBTQ activist and founder of Pink Summits, an LGBTQ mountaineering team attempting to scale the Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. When that's completed, Dastan will become the first Kyrgyzstani citizen to accomplish this feat, which ought to greatly change the perc…

Growing up in the central Asian nation of Krygystan, Dastan Kasmamytov had no idea he’d ever become an LGBTQ activist. But, when he was outed in national media at 19 and a fatwa was issued by the Islamic religious authorities, urging their followers to stone him to death, that path became inescapable. Find Dastan @dastanik & His Pink Summits Projec…

Andy Tobias' journey from being the "Best Little Boy in the World" (the title of the best-selling coming out memoir he authored under a pseudonym while still in grad school in 1972) to serving as the first openly-gay Treasurer of the Democratic Party from 1999-2016 is a fascinating one. Growing up in a suburban Jewish household where he was taught …

Kevin Jennings grew up in a southern trailer park, son of a homophobic itinerant Baptist preacher, was the first in his family to go to college (on a full scholarship at Harvard), and took the risky step of coming out while he was a high school history teacher in 1989. He quit that job in 1994 to form what has become the leading LGBTQ anti-bullying…

Jim Fouratt has been in the right place at the right time: he co-founded the leading anti-Vietnam war group in the 60s, he was present at all four nights of the Stonewall rebellion in June 1969, and he was an assistant to legendary music producer Clive Davis at Columbia Records. Listen as he shares his recollections of those momentous experiences.…

Khalleed Ahmed and his family fled civil war in Somalia, spent eight years in Kenyan refugee camps, and finally were given asylum in the United States. Join us as we listen to Khalleed share his journey to becoming an openly gay, Islamic, cardiac surgeon and an inspiration for others living in countries where they can't be themselves. (Part 2 of 2 …

David Mixner has been an author, political strategist, and civil rights activist for more than a half-century. He was first involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and later became a prominent LGBTQ rights advocate. A close confidant of President Bill Clinton in the early days of his administration, David had a falling out with Clinton w…

Paula Harrowing, a 49 y.o. British queer activist describes what it was like coming out into London's vibrant and diverse lesbian club scene in the late 80s and 90s only to be greeted soon thereafter by the arrival of AIDs. While nursing her gay male friends who were succumbing to that disease, she noticed the paucity of health services for women a…

Michela Griffo talks about the battle for LGBTQ civil rights from the first NYC Pride March in 1970 onward, the arrival of AIDS in 1981, the formation of real gay and lesbian community after that, and where the LGBTQ movement goes from here.By Mike Balaban

Mike talks with Michela Griffo about her life as an early and active member of the National Organization for Women in the late 1960s, a link to the Stonewall era, and one of a dozen or so participants from the first Gay Pride March in NYC in 1970 who’re still with us. She joins us today to talk about the sense of community that existed then and how…

Dave Kopay was the first prominent athlete to come out and the first male athlete in a major professional league to do so when he publicly disclosed he was gay in 1975. A hero to many LGBTQers for his courage, he paid a permanent price in being shut out of coaching jobs in colleges and at the pro level.…

Mike interviews Joel Tucker twenty years later: one of six survivors of the horrendous Backstreet Cafe shooting in Roanoke, Va. on September 20, 2000.By Mike Balaban

Cliff Morrison talks about forming the first AIDS ward in San Francisco General Hospital in 1983, as well as, his recent involvement in the making of “5B”, an award-winning documentary about that experience (now available on Amazon).By Mike Balaban

Jacob Tobia is a gender-nonconforming Los Angeleno who’s on a roll. Three years ago, they landed a job as an executive assistant on the hit Amazon series "Transparent." Shortly after, Jacob released a New York Times best-selling memoir, "Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story," and secured an option from Showtime to develop a TV series inspired by their l…

What do you do after you’ve been a Colt porn model, male escort, and drug addict? After kicking his drug addiction, Stu Fenton spent ten years getting his degrees in psychotherapy and gestalt therapy, opened a private therapy practice, and now counsels LGBTQ chemsex addicts in a private clinic, R 12, in Thailand on how to overcome their addiction. …

Rob Smith, founder of The Phluid Project, talks about his journey from his life as a successful fashion executive to creating the world’s first gender-free clothing brand.By Mike Balaban

Cliff Morrison arrived in San Francisco as a nurse in the late 1970s, as AIDS was about to erupt. In 1983, while working at SF General Hospital, one of the epicenters for the new disease, he was tasked with forming the world’s first hospital ward dedicated to serving people with AIDS. In the first of two episodes, Cliff tells Mike Balaban about tha…

Stu Fenton has had quite the life! In his early twenties, Stu was a Colt model and a male escort. That high life led to drug addiction, multiple near-death overdoses, and eventually rehab. Currently, he manages a chemsex treatment center in Chiang Mai, Thailand, one of only five in the world focusing on LGBTQ patients.…

Mike talks with Frank Carucci, a life-long New Yorker, about working in the NYC avant-garde theatre scene, the Stonewall riots and life in NYC over the last 60 years.By Mike Balaban

Ninety-five-year-old renowned poet Edward Field shares stories about gay life in NYC amid the social change of the 1950s, and life with his partner of 58 years, Neil Derrick.By Mike Balaban

Renowned poet and author Edward Field discusses with Mike, his colorful and bohemian life after WWII, including his life in France and Greece developing his craft as a fledgling poet, and 1950s gay life in Manhattan and McCarthyism.By Mike Balaban

Mike Balaban interviews renowned poet and author Edward Field. At 95 years old, Edward shares his experiences as a gay man in the military during World War ll, talking about his affair with his master sergeant in boot camp under the noses of his fellow recruits; his adventures as a navigator on bombing raids over Germany; and experiencing gay life …

Mike talks with 25-year-old documentarian, Caleb Holland, and compares their experiences coming out. In 1975, Mike, in his mid-twenties, was attracted to other guys, but successfully hid it from all who knew him. Almost 40 years later, Caleb relates how he was constantly told he was gay by others, even though he had no awareness of it until he was …

In this episode, Mike interviews Dave Nimmons on gay male bonding and how gay men can find meaningful ways to connect and create community.David Nimmons, a former president of NYC’s Lesbian and Gay Community Center, is the author of “The Soul Beneath The Skin: The Unseen Hearts and Habits of Gay Men” and has conducted workshops and guerrilla action…

Mike Balaban talks with LGBT Activist Eric Sawyer about the Queer Liberation March on Sunday, June 30, 2016, which runs three hours before the NYC World Pride March, and why we need this more than just a celebration of LGBTQ rights.By Mike Balaban

Cross-generational perspectives on LGBTQ issues and themes from a 66-year-old gay activist/historian and a 25-year-old. millennial documentarian.By Mike Balaban