Relationscapes: Exploring Human Identity and Connection

Kevin James Thornton built a massive audience singing absurd stories from his evangelical past in an auto-tune style on TikTok. But underneath the humor were years of loneliness, secrecy, religious fear, and the slow unraveling of a series of lives he thought he was supposed to live. 

Kevin talks about growing up in a "super fundamentalist" church in Indiana, youth-group purity culture, heartbreak, trying to escape being gay, coming to terms with himself, comedy, and why it’s never too late to start over.

Kevin’s new memoir is Big Baby: On Endings, Beginnings, and An Interdimensional Cat.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Kevin James Thornton is author of the book Big Baby: On Endings, Beginnings, and An Interdimensional Cat. He has built a devoted following of nearly 3 million fans across TikTok and Instagram with his hilarious, heartfelt, and occasionally cringey stories of self-reflection. Since launching his “It Was the 90s” tour in 2021, he has performed to sold-out crowds across the US, UK, Europe, and Canada for five consecutive years. In 2024, he was a headliner at Netflix Is a Joke Fest in Los Angeles. His debut comedy special, Be Yourself, is available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.

Why do racist comments from loved ones cut more deeply than overt racism from strangers? What makes it so difficult to name harm when it comes from someone who cares about you? And how do you respond when good intentions don’t match real impact? Samira Mehta says growing up in a mixed-race family showed her how love and harm can coexist in complicated, often invisible ways.

Through personal stories—about food, family expectations, code-switching, and cultural belonging—Mehta gives voice to the constant negotiations navigated by mixed-race people.

Samira Mehta is author of The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Samira K. Mehta is the Director of Jewish Studies and an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections religion, culture, and gender, including the politics of family life and reproduction in the United States. Her first book, Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) was a National Jewish book award finalist. She is also the author of a book of personal essays called The Racism of People Who Love You (Beacon Press, 2023). Her latest book, God Bless the Pill, examines the role of Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant voices in competing moral logics of contraception.

We talk a lot about women’s reproductive health. We rarely talk about men’s.

But that gap isn’t just cultural—it’s built into science itself.

In this episode, Yale sociologist Rene Almeling explains how modern medicine ended up with an entire field devoted to women’s reproductive systems—and no real equivalent for men. From a failed 19th-century push for “andrology” to today’s emerging research on sperm and health, we trace how this imbalance took shape.

Along the way, we look at what new science is starting to reveal: how age, smoking, and environmental exposures can affect sperm—and why most people have never heard about it. We also explore how cultural assumptions about gender have shaped everything from medical research to the way we describe fertilization itself.

If reproduction involves two bodies, why has only one been under the microscope? Find the answers in Rene Almeling's book, Guynecology: The Missing Science of Men's Reproductive Health.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Rene Almeling is Professor of Sociology at Yale University. She is the author of two award-winning books: Sex Cells offers an inside look at the American market for egg and sperm donors, and GUYnecology examines the causes and consequences of inattention to male reproductive health.

She thought there would always be more time to explore—until a routine hike nearly killed her.

In this mini episode, Bailey Buckles recounts how a sudden, life-threatening infection drove home the fact that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

It was an especially powerful moment, because as a transgender woman of color in America, she hadn't always wanted to stay alive. 

From climbing mountains to showing up online as her full self, Bailey strives to live with greater urgency, purpose, and joy.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Bailey Buckles is a trans content creator in Colorado who loves the outdoors, her partner, her dog, and living life. Follow her here, and at her Substack.

If you lost touch with reality, how would you even tell the difference?

That's the question Sarah Labrie had to confront after her mother was found on the side of a Houston freeway in the midst of a schizophrenic break. And she also wondered, "Am I next?"

In this candid conversation, Sarah discusses growing up between extremes of adoration and abuse, witnessing a parent’s mental illness, struggling with perfectionism, and looking for healthy relationships, until the weight of her own artistic ambition almost brought her to mental collapse.

We explore parallel worlds—of mother and daughter, of friendship and rupture, of the selves we become, the selves we might have been, and the selves that might yet be out there, somewhere. We're talking about Sarah's memoir, No One Gets to Fall Apart.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Walter Benjamin's Arcades project, as told by Wikipedia.

Sarah LaBrie is author of No One Gets to Fall Apart: A Memoir (HarperCollins, 2024), a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the Writers League of Texas Book Award. She's also a television writer whose credits include Minx, Blindspotting, Made for Love, Love, Victor and Beauty, a Beauty and the Beast prequel for Disney+. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell and the Austin Film Society. Her work has been performed at the Apollo Theater and at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Learn more at sarahlabrielivesinlosangeles.com.

Dogs didn’t just become our companions. They helped make us human.

They've been by our side for tens of thousands of years, helping us herd and hunt, migrate, heal, grieve, fight war, imagine the afterlife, and more. 

Religion and environmental studies scholar Laura Hobgood joins us to explore the long, complicated co-evolution of humans and dogs—how humans have loved, used, protected, and sometimes harmed them in return. Her book is called A Dog’s History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans.

Whether you love dogs, miss one deeply, or have never thought much about them at all, this episode will change how you see our oldest animal partner. Even if you aren't a dog person, you're still kind of a dog person!

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Dr. Laura Hobgood is co-chair of the Environmental Studies program and past chair of the Religion program at Southwestern University. She also holds the Elizabeth Root Paden Chair in Religion and Environmental Studies. Hobgood received her Ph.D. from St. Louis University and her M.Div. from Vanderbilt University. She is author of A Dog’s History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans. 

Some songs take decades to reveal what they’re really about.

Back in the 90s when 20-year-old Steven Page wrote “What a Good Boy,” he understood it as a plea to ease up on restrictive gender expectations that harmed boys and girls. But as he performed it over the years, he realized it was about much more than that.

The stirring anthem has become a greater exploration of gender identity and sexuality, a perennial wrestle against a binary world's hostility to people who don't fit the mold—trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, gay, or otherwise.

Page, a founding member of the smash-hit band Barenaked Ladies now enjoying his solo career, has spent much of his life writing songs to explore vulnerability, humor, grief, and joy, a signature blend of comedy and tragedy.

In this discussion, Page reflects on how "What A Good Boy" came to be, and what it's like to have his creation become part of someone else’s becoming.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. But you'll want to hear this one!

David Friend, "Steven Page project takes political turn with new album," Toronto Star (Sept. 21, 2018)

Steven Page is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and founding member of the music group Barenaked Ladies. Since going solo, Page has released five albums, he performs with groups like the Trans-Canada Highwaymen, and he publicly advocates on issues including mental and behavioral health. He has three sons and lives in New York with his partner, Christine Benedicto. I'm not sure if he has any dogs or cats, and I forgot to ask him. Join his Patreon at patreon.com/c/stevenpage.

When George M. Johnson was a kid growing up in New Jersey, they loved Black History Month. They were thrilled to learn about the people who shaped American history for the better. But as they got older, they started noticing things were missing—hidden stories that might have meant the most to a queer kid like they were.

George was especially drawn to one of the most dazzling moments in Black history, the Harlem Renaissance. They went searching for what had been covered up, forgotten, or erased, and resurrected those stories in their book, Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known. It's a celebration of the Black queer writers, performers, and activists of 1920s America.

George M. Johnson joins us to talk about Black and queer culture—how it impacted the past, how it enlivens our present, and how it can open up new possibilities for the future. This is a conversation about truth-telling, lineage, identity, and the stories that save us when we finally get to hear them.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again"

George M. Johnson is an award-winning Black non-binary writer, author, and activist. They are the author of the bestselling Young Adult memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue discussing their adolescence growing up as a young Black Queer boy in New Jersey. Their other books include Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known, and There's Always Next Year. George has also published in places like Teen Vogue, The Root, Essence, Ebony, THEM, and The Grio.

Is it possible to raise kind, feminist boys in our era of manosphere misogyny?

Sonora Jha, an Indian-American immigrant and single mother, says yes. But it takes a lot more than good intentions. 

She reflects on raising her son across cultures, teaching empathy through film, talking frankly about sex, consent, and body image, and modeling apology without demanding forgiveness. She pushes back on the idea that feminism harms boys, showing how it can actually free them from shame, silence, and isolation.

Sonora Jha joins us to talk about her book, How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

After a career in journalism in India and Singapore, Dr. Sonora Jha became a professor at Seattle University. She is author of four books, including How to Raise a Feminist Son (2021). Her novels include The Laughter, which won the 2024 Washington State Book Award for Fiction and was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by the New Yorker, NPR, and others, Foreign (2013), a finalist for the Shakti Bhatt Prize and the Hindu Prize, and her latest, Intemperance. 

Adoption is often framed as a loving and selfless decision made by women who want to give their babies a better life—but many relinquishing mothers say it doesn’t actually feel like a real choice at all.

Private domestic adoption in the U.S. operates under conditions of high demand, limited supply, and deep economic inequality. Researchers say women rarely choose adoption over abortion or parenting, and many relinquishing parents report long-term trauma. 

Sociologist Gretchen Sisson draws on a decade of interviews in her book Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood to examine who adoption really serves—and who it leaves behind. 

She invites us to rethink adoption from the ground up, and asks what real support for families would actually look like.

Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 

Gretchen Sisson studies abortion and adoption in the United States as a sociologist at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with women who have relinquished infants for domestic adoption over the past 60 years.