Being a thirteen-year old Indian neoclassical dancer involves a lot of sacrifice. It takes your mornings, your evenings, your weekends. It takes you away from your family. It takes focus, pain, concentration. But it gives, too. It gives strength, precision, a way for young women to process sexuality and passion. It gives community. And it gives something sacred: a place where men cannot enter. A place away from abuse. Contact Mic returns with an episode about being frozen by fear and learning to move again.

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Imagine you're driving along a freeway at 200 kilometres an hour in heavy rain. You can't see a thing. Now, imagine that you have what feels like two toilet paper rolls strapped to your eyes. Also, you're in a helicopter, flying just above treetops, in the dark. Welcome to the Australian Army.

Contact Mic returns with an episode about the freedom of flight, the restriction of rules and the power of duty.

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In 1981, San Francisco was the centre of the gay universe. By 1985, that universe looked almost post-apocalyptic. In a city shattered by AIDS, dreams of growing old surrounded by your favourite dancers, performers and porn stars gave way to dreams of simply growing old. Will Peterson watched his generation die. But he also watched them fight, watched them love, watched them band together and organise.

Contact Mic returns with an episode about what happens to Disneyland when the fairytale turns dark, and the stories we tell to survive.

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Your parents think you've joined a cult. People are trying to punch you on the street. Joining the Hare Krishnas isn't all chanting and cheap lunches. When you start swapping boozy jams for sober mantras, you start to learn how you tick. But stripping things back doesn't always make the path any clearer. 

Contact Mic returns with an episode about searching for simplicity and finding complexity.

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We're always told that we can't control when we'll die. But what if we could? When her grandmother passed away, Ellen expected the grief, the mourning, the emptiness. She didn't expect the police. She didn't expect the media. She didn't expect INTERPOL. 

Contact Mic returns with an episode about breaking the rules, about deciding how to live your life, and how to end it.

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Becoming a parent is always filled with a mix of excitement and terror. But when you're trying to figure out how to be a mother to children who aren't yours, there isn't much of a handbook to follow. Sometimes it's excruciating. Sometimes it's joyous. Sometimes, it feels like you just can't compete with blood.

Contact Mic returns with an episode about the ties that bind us, and the ones we have to weave ourselves.

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There are a lot of things that our bodies do that are mostly outside our control. Blinking. Breathing. Our hearts beating. For Jess Thom, there's also saying 'biscuit.' Or 'hedgehog.' Or thumping her chest, hard, over and over. Or uttering flights of ridiculous, wonderful, surreal fantasy, that feel like itching powder in her blood until they get out.

Contact Mic returns with an episode about the right words, the wrong words and the words that just won't go unsaid.

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High school is a time when you figure out a lot of stuff about yourself. Your style, your sexuality, your passions - being a teenager is a perpetual state of flux. This month, we spoke to three young trans people about being Batman to your friends and Bruce Wayne to your family, about the spaces between binaries and about coming out again and again and again.

Contact Mic returns with an episode about definition, discovery and daring.

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We all have fights that we choose, but there are some who are born fighting. Fighting to be heard, fighting to be seen, fighting for the right to exist in public space where the odds are all stacked against you.

Contact Mic returns with an episode about history, culture, privilege and pride.

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We all have fights that we choose, but there are some who are born fighting. Fighting to be heard, fighting to be seen, fighting for the right to exist in public space where the odds are all stacked against you.

Contact Mic returns with an episode about history, culture, privilege and pride.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.