QueerAF | Inspiring LGBTQIA+ stories told by emerging queer creatives

Young, vulnerable and new to a big city: I became the target of an online predator

Five years ago, Rory was drugged and sexually assaulted by two men, who I met while using Grindr. 

Young, vulnerable and new to a big city – growing up without any LGBTQ inclusive sex education in school – I became the target for an online predator.

It’s been difficult coming to terms with this attack, but five years on later Rory is telling his story on his own terms on the #QueerAF podcast, in the hope it might inspire others to be empowered by it.

With thanks to Rory Boyle, Survivors UK, Stay Brave and David Stuart for support for this episode.

Read Rory's opinion piece in the Metro now:

https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/12/drugged-sexually-assaulted-online-hook-up-went-wrong-12213912/

Subscribe to #QueerAF now on Spotify, Apple and podcast apps everywhere.

Support

https://www.survivorsuk.org/

https://www.staybrave.org.uk/help

Producer Rory Boyle:

Rory Boyle is a radio presenter, podcaster and event producer. He currently makes the podcast Queer Ear, for Transmission Roundhouse, and works across a number of organisations focused on creating opportunities for young people in the performing arts.

http://twitter.com/mrroryboyle

LGBTQ #QueerAF track of the week:

Should’ve Loved Me by Kush is on Spotify, find him on @Kushting on Twitter and Instagram. Links in the description. Have a #QueerAF week. 

twitter.com/kushting

instagram.com/kushting

https://open.spotify.com/track/1MnKSqqtSoTTcdACFmBn1M?si=6vXe-1r3Q-eAenrV4OWXfA

National Student Pride 2020 

This season is inspired by National Student Pride's themes:

• Carving out space for womxn in the community
• Queer Sex
• Disability
• Researching the Rainbow (STEM)

Find out more about the festival, back on the 22nd-24th February, and visit www.studentpride.co.uk – where we have yet another amazing star-studded live podcast recording on the main stage.

We are #QueerAF. And so are you.

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pansexual reporter Kenya Jay Scarlett speaks to queer couples to find out everything you need to know about being in a relationship. 

From getting together to breaking up and how her pansexuality has left her feeling some people are way too focused on gender.

This week on #QueerAF whether you've had one or not, we take you on a crash course on being in a queer relationship.

Subscribe now on Spotify, Apple and podcast apps everywhere.

This season is inspired by National Student Pride's themes:

• Carving out space for womxn in the community
• Queer Sex
• Disability
• Researching the Rainbow (STEM)

Find out more about the festival, back on the 22nd-24th February, and visit www.studentpride.co.uk – where we have yet another amazing star-studded live podcast recording on the main stage.

We are #QueerAF. And so are you.

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To prepare for my mum's gay wedding, I talked to her about sexuality for the first time

Journalist Eve Hartley sits down with her mum, ahead of her same-sex wedding, to discuss for the first time what her mum went through when she came out while Eve was only a few years old.

Eve reflects on how her journey to understanding sexuality was so different to her mums. And the reason for that is all thanks to her Mum.

Before celebrating her wedding, Eve sits down to tell her mum, that she is her ultimate queer icon.

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#QueerAF is back for season four. With more LGBT+ reporters than ever.

This year our stories come from Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes, with reporters from Northern Ireland, Leeds, London and beyond.

When you listen – you support the students, graduates and LGBT+ reporters we mentor to build their audio portfolio. And they tell you beautifully produced queer stories. 

They have stories on asexuality, sex shame, how to be happy and single, pansexuality, everything you need to know about being in a queer relationship, why LBQT women's spaces need a revolution and so much more.

Back in your podcast feed, get us for free, every Monday from Jan 27. 

Subscribe now on Spotify, Apple and podcast apps everywhere.

This season is inspired by National Student Pride's themes:

• Carving out space for womxn in the community
• Queer Sex
• Disability
• Researching the Rainbow (STEM)

Find out more about the festival, back on the 22nd-24th February, and visit www.studentpride.co.uk – where we have yet anohter amazing star studded live podcast recording on the main stage.

We are #QueerAF. And so are you. 

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don't mess with a boy in a dress, he was born to impress.

Lead singer of the feeling and writer of the musical that’s taken the UK’s west end by storm Dan Gillespie Sells, joinst us for our season three finale, to tell the story behind the soundtrack to your #QueerAF life: Everybody's Talking About Jamie.

In an ever changing world, the way we identify is constantly being challenged. Not just by people around us, but by ourselves too. And that’s why Jamie New, the 16 year old from Sheffield in the north of the UK, who’s career test says he’ll only amount to being a forklift truck driver – is such a refreshing story to watch, enjoy, and for queers everywhere – to see themselves in. And even better? It was inspired by a true story.

We interview Dan Gillespie Sells, lead singer in the Feeling and writer of the show, and star Layton Williams who is playing Jamie in the UK's West End.

With thanks to all to contributors this season. if you haven’t yet go back and listen to Martin Joseph, Jacob Edwards, Sebastian Hendra, Max Taylor, Cassie Galpin, Alice Taplin, and Patrick Reardon Morgan’s episodes. 

For today’s episode thanks to Dan Gillespie Sells, Layton Williams and the team at Everybody’s talking about Jamie – and if you’re desperate to see the story but geography is getting in the way. Dan told us the movie is very much, in production.

Just like Season 4 of the show, so stay subscribed on your podcast feeds, and bring us back faster with ratings and reviews in Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts or what ever app you listen in. Share us on social media tag in @studentpride, the whole reason we make this show to keep the pride of conversation alive all year round. 

Today’s show was produced by @jamie_wareham. 

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

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Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Gay and Non Gay discuss douching (to help LGBT+ rights)

James Barr and Dan Hudson host the hit UK LGBT+ podcast A Gay and a Non Gay, which began out of terrible conversation about pub etiquette.

But their friendship really grew when their worlds collided, as Talia, Dan’s girlfriend and James’s friend, left for the USA; Leaving James and Dan to fend for themselves with just one task, to make a podcast.

But when we say their worlds collided, we're not talking about the dynamic duo life making a podcast in their girlfriend’s absence. We're talking about the queer and straight world meeting head on. So on this week’s #QueerAF we ask: do we need straight allies to get the queer equality we both crave and demand?

Plus we see what happens when hetero and homo crash together in a beautiful melee of rainbows, pints and douching.

Big thanks to the podcast A Gay and a Non Gay for this week's show. Subscribe to them now: https://www.gaynongay.com/

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is one of Russia’s most iconic cultural figures, but the country still denies he was gay. 125 years after his mysterious death, his magnificent symphonies, operas, and ballets – including all-time classics Swan Lake and The Nutcracker – are still performed, streamed and enjoyed by millions of people around the world.

But behind Tchaikovsky’s sumptuous melodies and explosive orchestral climaxes lies the complicated story of a gay man. His sexuality brought him both joy and despair, but it was largely tolerated within Tchaikovsky’s social circles. Now his country outright denies that he was gay, bans so-called ‘gay propaganda’ and continues to torture LGBT+ people in the region of Chechnya.

So is now more important celebrate Russia’s rich queer history?

Support the Gay Star News #ChechnyaInCrisis appeal here: https://www.gofundme.com/chechnya-crisis-appeal

Listen to Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3vaCn32O9E86DzxSAr2bh5?si=3ocQR1WBRSiSce2_xQN3Fg

With thanks to reporter Patrick Reardon-Morgan (@preardonmorgan), the Philharmonia Orchestra in London (@Philharmonia) and executive production from host Jamie Wareham (@jamie_wareham). Check out our guest, Jon Jacob's podcast, Thoroughly Good:

https://www.thoroughlygood.me/tag/thoroughly-good-podcast/

Subscribe to #QueerAF on Apple Podcasts, Download on Spotify and get us on your favourite podcast app – or listen on your desktop with Acast.

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

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Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

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Did you make all your Sims gay too? This week on #QueerAF, reporter Alice Taplin brings us along on a ride down the Rainbow Road, not on Mario Kart, but on a brief history of queer gaming.

Video games were long considered the territory of straight boys and men, with COD, Fifa, and GTA being the first thing that sprung to people’s imaginations. But with representation across the board having made rapid improvements and the creation of Steam making way for indie games, now everybody and their mum is playing some form of video game. So what does that mean for LGBT+ gay(mers)? We find out.

With thanks to producer Alice Taplin (@alicetaplinish) and guest Chris Fox from Gaymers Inc for guiding us through this week's episode.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Download on Spotfiy and get us on your favourite podcast app – or listen on your desktop with Acast.

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you 'act straight' to stay safe on public transport too? This week on #QueerAF we explore just how safe public transport is for LGBT+ people. Reporter Cassie Galpin hears three intersecting stories from Will, Nikki and Martyn, who have faced prejudice while traveling, but turned those hate crimes into three inspiring actions. 

Today’s show was produced by @CassieGalpin, executive production on this episode came from @Jamie_Wareham. Thanks to Martyn, Nikki and Will for sharing their inspiring stories today.

The hate crime reporting form we mentioned in the show is here: https://www.met.police.uk/true-vision-report-hate-crime/

Do you have a story to tell? This podcast pays LGBT+ producers, students and graduates to tell their most #QueerAF story. Its a project by national student pride to keep our pride of conversation going all year round. Email [email protected] if you want to pitch an episode, or have a story to tell to our roll call of reporters.

With thanks to Gay Star News for allowing us to run a clip from their mini YouTube documentary with Will and music comes from the Free Music Archive: Tours, Broke for Free and A. A. Aalto.

Subscribe to the podcast and rate us on Apple Podcasts (it really does helps us put the podcast in more peoples ears) share the Spotify link with a friend or just tell them about why they should listen to the show their favourite podcast app. 

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

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Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

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National Student Pride's ambassador Evan Davis guest hosts the show and interviews LGBT+ Icon Ian McKellen on the #StudentPride podcast at National Student Pride 2019.

🦄 Subscribe:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/queeraf-by-national-student-pride/id1126301158?mt=2

🎧 Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/3wiN3JZBJ2uqcg3R0OQDqP

Evan Davis interviewed Ian McKellen on the #QueerAF podcast at National Student Pride 2019 at the University of Westminster, discussing his lifetime achievements and relationship with the LGBT community.

They spoke about #MeToo, chemsex, drugs, his coming out, the #MeToo movement and empowered the young LGBT+ audience.

The event took place on February 23rd at the non-profit organizations, now five-year-long residency, Westminster Marylebone campus.

Davis and McKellen hosted a live-stream of #QueerAF the National Student Pride podcast.

In conversation, McKellen proposed to Evan Davis they speak about chemsex. Otherwise known as getting high and horny or party and play – those who take part in chemsex do so to change the sex they are having with a so-called ‘holy trinity’ of drugs.

McKellen spoke about when he first tried a joint at the age of 30, with Evan Davis adding that ‘drugs were much weaker back then’.

The audience at National Student Pride were enthralled by Ian with his re-tellings of his pursuits to join the theatre as “one of the reasons I became a professional actor is because I learned that I could meet queers in the British theatre” and admitting “I just wish when I was younger I could have been myself”.

McKellen got many a laugh with his unrelenting wit, gesticulating at one point about “drawings of genitalia in public bathrooms”.

The conversation also looked at various aspects of McKellen's life:

- His coming out story

- How Margaret Thatcher’s Section 28 Law made him the activist he is today and how the queer scene in the theatre was what first attracted him to the profession

- His advice to young LGBT+ students

- Holding Elijah Wood’s hand while he got a tattoo during the filming of Lord of the Rings

- The #MeToo movement

On Me Too he says:

'Well frankly, I’m waiting for someone to accuse me of something, and me wondering whether they’re not telling the truth and me having forgotten (pointing to his head) you know.

But with the couple of names you’ve mention, people I’ve worked with, both of them were in the closet. And hence all their problems as people and their relationships with other people, if they had been able to be open about themselves and their desires, they wouldn’t have started abusing people in the way they’ve been accused.

Whether they should be forced to stop working. That’s debatable. I rather think that’s up to the public. Do you want to see someone who has been accused of something that you don’t approve of again? If the answer’s no, then you won’t buy a ticket, you won’t turn on the television. But there may be others for who that’s not a consideration.

And it’s difficult to be exactly black and white.'

He has since released this statement about the comments: https://twitter.com/IanMcKellen/status/1101741037083455488

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free and support our not-for-profit work, investing in a new generation of queer audio professionals:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

If you like our podcast, you'll love our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content. Try it now:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

Make sure to sign up for updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.