Nancy

Tobin and Kathy have sweated through a few live shows, and now it's time to share a few of them with the world.

— Jes Tom is a weird nonbinary queer Asian-American radical cyborg stand up comic. They will be performing at Caroline's on February 12th.

— John Paul Brammer wrote the column "Hola Papi" for Into; he's now a staff writer at Them.

Music in this episode by Jeremy Bloom. Theme by Alexander Overington.

Myosha Smith stopped speaking to her brother Joseph Wilson after he handled her coming out poorly. Realizing his mistake, Joe decided to try to win his sister back with a song.

— Daniel A. Gross is a writer, reporter, and radio producer based in Brooklyn.

— Myosha Smith is a social worker and songwriter based in Brooklyn.

— Musical Connections is a program run by Carnegie Hall that teaches inmates at Sing Sing Correctional Facility to create and perform music.

— You can listen to live performances of Gnarly Knees and Bright Dark, a song Joe co-wrote with Myosha, from inside Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

Special thanks to John J. Lennon, a journalist in Sing Sing Correctional Institution who helped Nancy find this story. John wrote about the Carnegie Hall Musical Connections program for Pacific Standard. Also thanks to our friends at WQXR: Christine Herskovits, Aaron Dalton, Eileen Delahunty, and Matt Abramovitz.

Music in this episode by Kyle Sanna. Nancy theme by Alexander Overington.

Every year, contestants spend months working on their charisma, memorizing speeches, and getting their show-stopping outfits ready to win the sash. No, this is not Miss America...this is Mr. Los Angeles Leather.

— James Kim makes podcasts at KPCC.— Pup Yoshi can be found @toddster213 on Twitter.— You can listen to both seasons of  The Competition at competitionpodcast.com.Music in this episode by Jeremy Bloom, the team at The Competition, and Broke For Free ("Calm the Fuck Down"). Theme by Alexander Overington.

Note: this is a rerun of a previous episode.

Nancy staged a friend-tervention for Joe Rodriguez. Will finding your gaggle be your resolution for the new year?

And if you want to broaden your friendship horizons this year, join our How to Get a Gaggle project!

Special thanks to Fran Tirado of the podcast Food 4 Thot, Eric Sosa at C'mon Everybody, and Bill Clark and Libby Willis at MeMe's Diner. Our friendship project is coordinated by Charlotte Cooper with help from Ashley Lusk, Caroline English, Sahar Baharloo, Sarah Sandbach, Fiona Carswell, and many more of our colleagues at WNYC Studios.

Original music by Jeremy Bloom with additional music by Mystery Mammal ("You're Up There"), Podington Bear ("Gizmo"), and Creo ("Memory"). Theme by Alex Overington.

Growing up, Phoebe was a Jesus kid. In college, after Tinder-swiping her way to gayness, she comes out to Christians and hopes that they’ll accept her. And now, Phoebe goes on a mission to find out whether people with fundamentally different beliefs can have meaningful relationships.

— Phoebe Wang is a multidisciplinary artist based between Brooklyn, NY and Toronto, ON. You can find her on Twitter @feebswang.

— "God + The Gays" won the 2018 Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition Best New Artist Award and Phoebe gave an acceptance speech that resulted in a 45-second standing ovation.

Music in this episode by Joni Void. The song “Let Your Little Light Shine” is by Pamela Warrick-Smith and was performed by Community Chorus, a resistance-themed choir led by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs in LA. Nancy theme by Alexander Overington.

A nun leaves her small town home in Illinois and comes to the West Village of ‘80s New York...so she can learn how to care for patients dying of HIV/AIDS. 

— Michael J. O'Loughlin is a Chicago-based religion journalist and author of The Tweetable Pope: A Spiritual Revolution in 140 Characters.

— Bethany Place is a non-profit AIDS Service Organization in the St. Louis Metro East area.

— Brian Dolphin contributed original music to this episode. Visit him at briandolphin.com to receive his free monthly songs or to join a community sing near you.

Music in this episode by Jeremy Bloom, Brian Dolphin ("Cow Trough Song"), Marco Trovatello ("Haunty Fourstroke"), and UltraCat ("Disco High"). Theme by Alexander Overington.

Bowen Yang drops by the studio to talk to Tobin and Kathy about Sandra Oh, Saturday Night Live, and bad representation.

— Bowen Yang is a comedian, producer, and formerly mediocre chemistry major based in Brooklyn, NY. He co-hosts the podcast, Las Culturistas, and you can find him on Twitter @bowenyang.

Music in this episode by Jeremy Bloom. Theme by Alexander Overington.

Warning: this episode discusses childhood sexual assault.

When he was a young teenager, Luke realized he had to speak up—about who he was and what had happened to him.

— Radio Rookies is a New York Public Radio initiative that provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities, and their world.

— The Ali Forney Center is a community center assisting LGBT homeless youth in New York City.

Music in this episode by Jeremy Bloom and PC III ("Blue Hope"). Theme by Alexander Overington.

This week, Nancy is featuring an episode of Radiolab Presents: Gonads.

A lot of us understand biological sex with a pretty fateful underpinning: if you’re born with XX chromosomes, you’re female; if you’re born with XY chromosomes, you’re male. But it turns out, our relationship to the opposite sex is more complicated than we think.

This episode was reported by Molly Webster, and produced by Matt Kielty. With scoring, original composition and mixing by Matt Kielty and Alex Overington. Additional production by Rachael Cusick, and editing by Pat Walters. The “Ballad of Daniel Webster” and “Gonads” was written, performed and produced by Majel Connery and Alex Overington.

Special thanks to Erica Todd, Andrew Sinclair, Robin Lovell-Badge, and Sarah S. Richardson. Plus, a big thank you to the musicians who gave us permission to use their work in this episode—composer Erik Friedlander, for "Frail as a Breeze, Part II," and musician Sam Prekop, whose work "A Geometric," from his album The Republic, is out on Thrill Jockey.

Radiolab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. And the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.

Nancy theme by Alex Overington.

We asked you to share with us the things you've been meaning to tell someone. This is what happened next.

— The article that led us to Michael Kerr can be found at The New York Times.

— Dylan Marron is a digital creator in New York. 

— Glenn Marron is a psychologist in Manhattan and the Hudson Valley.

Music in this episode by James Pants ("Cha Cha Demo"), Little Glass Men ("Cloud Launching"), and Benedek ("Cruzin"). Theme by Alexander Overington.