Support for same-sex marriage in America just dropped six points since 2022 — and Zach wants to know why. In this week's solo episode, he digs into a recent Gallup poll showing acceptance falling from 71% to 65%, even as LGBTQ+ identification among Gen Z and millennials continues to climb. It's a contradiction that's been sitting with him, and he works through it out loud.

The conversation ranges from anti-gay laws spreading across parts of Africa, to Budapest's pride parade defying a hostile government, to the swelling wave of anti-trans legislation moving through U.S. statehouses. Zach pushes back hard on the argument that trans people living authentically has any impact on anyone else's life, and reflects on why the disappearance of DEI commitments across companies and institutions worries him.

He also gets personal — recounting what it was like coming out to his father in his early twenties (and the six months of silence that followed), and to his mother, whose first questions revealed just how little exposure she'd had to LGBTQ+ people. Zach compares that to how differently a coming-out conversation might go today, using his cousin's transgender child as an example of a much more accepting generation of parents.

The episode closes on something more intimate: why Zach, despite 27+ years with his husband, still isn't fully comfortable holding hands in public — a hesitation rooted in something he witnessed growing up in Miami. It's an honest look at the gap between wanting full visibility and knowing when it doesn't feel safe.

Zach also hosts Listen Up Girl, a daily LGBTQ+ news podcast, and The Gay Bit, a weekly Friday dose of campy commentary — both available wherever you listen to this show.

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In this deeply moving episode, Zach sits down with Arnold Dahl-Wooley — a nationally recognized Two Spirit public speaker, advocate, and founder of Two Spirit Advocacy in Minnesota — for a conversation about identity, culture, and survival.

Arnold opens by defining "Two Spirit" for listeners unfamiliar with the term: a sacred identity within Native American culture referring to those within the LGBTQ+ population who are seen as embodying more than one gender, historically honored as leaders, healers, and teachers. He traces how colonization stripped that sacredness away, and explains why the term is culturally specific — not a label for non-Indigenous people to claim, even as its teachings of sacredness and self-worth are for everyone.

The conversation moves through Arnold's own journey of hiding his authentic self as a kid to protect himself, into 25+ years of public speaking and founding Two Spirit Advocacy — the only organization of its kind in Minnesota — offering crisis outreach, healthcare connections, ceremony, drum-making classes, and community nights.

Zach and Arnold also go deep on spirituality: what happens to Two Spirit people after death in Ojibwe tradition, spirit guides and spirit names, and how continuation (not reincarnation) shapes Arnold's worldview.

The episode turns serious as they discuss the MMIW/MMIR crisis, the pain of being "erased twice" through misgendering and disappearance, and what real allyship and visibility can do to save lives. Arnold closes with a message to the wider LGBTQ+ community: Two Spirit people are part of the alphabet too, and walking together — sharing culture instead of appropriating it — is how healing happens.

Arnold also shares his 27-year love story with his husband, and reflects on what it means to live loudly and authentically after years of hiding.

Learn more: twospiritadvocacy.com

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It's Friday, which means it's time for The Gay Bit — Zach's weekly dose of camp, commentary, and community talk on Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay. This week: summer is officially Zach's least favorite season, and he's not sorry about it. He breaks down why he'd rather be bundled up in a sweater than baking in the heat, why he's never been a beach person despite growing up in Miami, and why his skincare routine comes before his tan.

From there, it's a full tour of gay summer culture: the annual pilgrimage to Provincetown, the joys and exhaustion of tea dance, why the "gay beach" walk is an outright scam, and the very specific rhythm of a P-town week (breakfast, tea dance, dinner, drag show, Spiritus Pizza at 1am, repeat). He ranks the best and worst weeks to visit — skip July 4th, aim for Labor Day — and reflects on how the town has changed over the years, including a tribute to a beloved local performer who's since passed.

The episode closes with a chaotic, hilarious, oddly touching story about "Ann," a P-town regular from summers past who Zach and his friend Tony can't stop talking about — and an open call to the internet to help him find her. Along the way: thoughts on Florida politics, dream towns, and why Boston might just be the right amount of gay.

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Kathy Anderson joins the show to talk about her new short story collection, Vamoose, fifteen stories centered on older lesbians standing on the edge of something new. She traces the book's title back to a single line of dialogue that captured the collection's spirit of letting go of the old to make room for the new.

The conversation moves through Kathy's own path: coming out at 17 in the late 1970s, building a career as a public librarian at a time when librarians were among the first professionals to organize an LGBTQ task force, and publishing her first book after 60 following years of writing, mentorship, and contest submissions. She and Zach talk candidly about writing humor alongside loss, why she resists cynical endings, and what it means to finally stop worrying what people think.

They also dig into queer literary history and access, from the 1989 Texas Pride Parade to present-day book bans, and Kathy highlights two resources for readers: the Queer Liberation Library (accessible free through the Libby app) and a new community library opening in Boston. Vamoose is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and directly through Vine Leaves Press.

Guest: Kathy Anderson, author of Vamoose (Vine Leaves Press)

In this episode:

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Kathy's Book: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/3988322067?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

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Zach opens up about the relationship people ask him about most: his 28-year partnership with his husband, Andrew. Prompted by the same question on every radio and podcast appearance lately — "how did you two make it work?" — Zach walks through the whole origin story: meeting on AOL in 1998 (dial-up, flip phones, and all), their first date, moving in together, and the honeymoon phase giving way to who they really are.

Along the way: the infamous "unique boutique" closet purge, the DC trip that ended the honeymoon phase, and the birth of the phrase "DC hungry." Zach gets honest about what nobody tells you about long-term relationships — that the hard parts are normal, that the first nine months aren't real life, and that surviving decades together isn't about avoiding conflict, it's about choosing to stay through it.

This is the first in a series where Zach breaks down what to actually expect in a long-term relationship, including a preview of the "seven year itch" chapter of his and Andrew's story, coming in a future episode.

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Today on Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay, Zach sits down with British author Matt Cain — bestselling novelist, former editor-in-chief of Attitude magazine, MBE recipient, and founder of Pansy, the UK's dedicated LGBTQ+ publishing house.

Matt opens up about growing up gay in a working-class town outside Manchester during the height of the AIDS crisis, being bullied for being "too girly" before he even understood what being gay meant, and the years he spent internalizing shame he didn't create. Zach and Matt trade coming-of-age stories — including their very different first experiences stepping into gay bars and gay culture for the first time — and talk honestly about the residual shame that follows so many gay men even after coming out.

The conversation moves into Matt's career: a decade making documentaries and reporting arts and entertainment on UK broadcast news, the online abuse he faced simply for being visibly gay on camera, and his time leading Attitude magazine. Matt shares how every publisher rejected his early novels for being "too gay," how he crowdfunded his first book and broke a national fundraising record to prove them wrong, and the moment 18 months ago he received a letter from the Prime Minister informing him he'd been awarded an MBE for services to LGBTQ+ culture — presented to him personally by Prince William.

They dig into Matt's new novel, The Castle of Stories, inspired by his husband's real-life inheritance of a centuries-old hideaway in rural Italy, and Matt's lifelong fascination with erased queer history — from Michelangelo's love sonnets to Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. Matt also opens up about why he founded Pansy, reclaiming a childhood slur as the name of his publishing house, and what he'd say to queer writers being told to tone down their identity to get published.

It's a conversation about shame, self-acceptance, queer history, and building something that didn't exist before — because no one else would.

📖 Get The Castle of Stories by Matt Cain — available now in the US and UK, in print, ebook, and audiobook, wherever you buy books.

Learn more about Matt and his books here: https://www.mattcainwriter.com/

🎧 Listen to more of Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay wherever you get your podcasts.

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Author Ryan La Sala joins the show to talk about his new horror novel The Dead of Summer, now out in paperback, and the fictional island of Anchor's Mercy — a queer sanctuary modeled on Provincetown, right down to the drag queens who run the town after the tourists clear out. Ryan opens up about writing horror as a way to process fear and courage, the complicated dynamic between year-round locals and seasonal visitors in queer resort towns, and the mother-son storyline inspired by (but not literally) his own mom. He also talks about his earlier books Honeys and Beholder, the upcoming Dead of Summer sequel, movie news on the Honeys adaptation, his cat Haunted Little Girl, and why he thinks everyone should put on a wig at least once.

Ryan's books, including The Dead of Summer.  https://www.ryanlasala.com/

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Every gay content creator has a Karen. Mine has several — plus a Brent, a Donna, and a Gary with exactly six followers and one Pokémon post to his name. This week on The Gay Bit, Zach breaks down the taxonomy of the strangers who slide into his comments and DMs to inform him he's going to hell: the drive-by, the scripture bomber, the concerned auntie, and the rarest breed of all, the debate-me bro. Some of it is pure comedy (Donna's 47 public photos of her granddaughter's birthday party while lecturing Zach on family values). Some of it is genuinely moving — a mother named Linda, quietly wrestling with her faith and her love for her gay son, who had nowhere else to put her fear. Plus: the time Zach accidentally cross-posted his gay news podcast into a West African community Facebook group at midnight, and lived to tell the tale.

Mentioned in this episode: BAGLY (Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth) — bagly.org

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In this episode of Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay, Zach talks with Felix Eller — the Richmond, Virginia native who unexpectedly went viral for winning a Heated Rivalry-themed lookalike contest.

In this episode:

Follow Felix and check out Hit the Town 

https://www.instagram.com/felix.eller/

https://chirp.me/felixeller

Hit the Town Crowdfunding

https://www.freefunder.com/campaign/hit-the-town

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In this week's This Is Everything episode, Zach takes listeners on a trip back to Southern Illinois, where he visited his mother for her birthday and revisited the tiny rural town he lived in until age seven. He reflects on what his life could have looked like had his family never relocated to Florida — the bullying he likely would have faced, the lack of diversity in his childhood school, and the very real possibility his life would have taken a darker turn. He traces the ripple effects of that one relocation decision all the way to meeting his husband in New York City 27+ years ago, and reflects on gratitude, chosen paths, and the "what if" moments that shape a life.

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