Laura Borichevsky wants to open up more conversations about sex, gender, and love: all through digging into the many connections we can find between them and the outdoors. Gale links up with Laura to learn more about her vision for her exciting new podcast, Sex Outside.

Catch-up with Kareemah Batts, founder of Adaptive Climbing Group, diversity professional, and disability advocate.

We all have our own profound connection to land and water that should be honored and respected, but all too often, dominant narratives of what it means to be an ‘outdoorsperson’ uplifts just one way to be outdoors. In the first episode of “See Us Outside,” Gabaccia talks with leaders from Brown Girl Surf and Charles Roundtree Bloom Project to help affirm the cultural connection to nature that exists for girls and women of color.

Creating more opportunities for access to outdoor recreation allows young women of color to define their own narratives in the outdoors. Organizations like Young Women Who Crush and Women’s Wilderness are playing a key role opening up the door to the benefits of spending time in nature. In the second episode of See Us Outside, Gabaccia explores the systemic barriers to accessing the outdoors and the liberation and healing that can occur when a woman of color gets to choose it for herself.

In a shared space amongst Women of Color, there is a unique comfort and freedom, with no need to explain yourself or hold yourself back. The four organizations highlighted on this series are in many ways a testament of the importance of affinity spaces. Their communities, beyond creating opportunities for personal development, leadership, and outdoor skills, reveal the existence of a very special kind of joy. In episode three of See Us Outside, Gabaccia contemplates the power of nature and community in cultivating joy in the outdoors.

What do we hope the future of women of color in the outdoors looks like? In the final episode of See Us Outside, we hear from leaders from across the organizations doing the work to provide outdoor opportunities, as well as the outdoor community, as they share their vision as we look ahead.

Meet Gabaccia, host of our upcoming miniseries See Us Outside. Gabaccia Moreno is passionate about creating spaces to talk about what it means to explore responsibility. In both her freelance work and in her spare time, Gabaccia works on projects to help expand the conversation around conservation and public lands to be more inclusive and to tell a deeper story of what it means to recreate in them.

Filmmaker and climber Biz Young shares her evolution from creating stop-motion music videos in her dorm room to making short documentary films inspired by nature and driven by purpose.

If you menstruate (and honestly, even if you don’t), it’s likely that periods are one of many factors that come into play when you’re looking to head outside. Join nurse and bike tourist Mary Ann Thomas with Sex Outside host Laura Borichevsky to hear insights and options around staying clean, remaining conscious of the environment, and giving yourself permission to recognize that there is always more to learn about our bodies and their cycles.

For people who wear plus-size apparel, it’s often downright impossible to find the gear necessary to get out and stay warm, safe, and dry on the mountain. That’s what this two-part series is about. In part one, we talk with Marielle Elizabeth. Marielle is a photographer, model, fat advocate, and the writer of a viral essay in The Cut titled “Apparently, I’m Too Fat to Ski.” Marielle speaks first hand about the need for plus size winter apparel, as well as the changes she’d like to see across the outdoor industry.