Jonny is joined by Craig to discuss recent developments that suggest reality is starting to beat attempts to shape it through rhetoric, albeit all while relying on narrative. They look at the pushback against Alligator Alcatraz, the persistence of the Epstein Lists conspiracy, and the pushback on an Indianapolis pastor calling for the execution of LGBTQ+ people as evidence that ideologues can go too far. In the back half of the show, they discuss examples of how a desire for compassion and empat...
Jul 16, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather begin with a thesis that the weather is transphobic. This not-entirely-serious claim is used as a foil to discuss disinformation and misinformation campaigns. They examine several current event stories impacted by such spin, including: the Texas floods, the Everglades detention center, myths about undocumented immigration, and trans ban legislation.In the back half of the show, Jonny picks up the thread of AI's role in producing deep fakes and contributing to disinformation cam...
Jul 09, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather celebrate the end of a very busy and very good Pride Month while also taking stock of a lot of bad news for the LGBTQ+ community this past weekend. After reviewing SCOTUS decisions and developments in the BBB, in the back half of the show they turn to why visibility matters, especially at a time when people are trying to erase us.
Jul 02, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather process their weekend, which included domestic packing, Pride celebrations, and the threat of WWIII starting in the Middle East. They turn from this big bomb to the bombshell the SCOTUS dropped in its US v. Skrmetti decision. There is quite a lot of fallout already from that explosive ruling. In the back half of the show they explore queer and trans joy as activists' strategy and tactic, starting with an empowering gift from a fan of the show. The fight isn't over, folks, and w...
Jun 25, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather are joined by local queer and trans artist, Brooke Yandle, creator of Hawthorne Art. Together, they discuss the challenges of making a living as an artist in a small town before turning their attention to assessing this past weekend's Pride on the Strip events, No Kings protest rally, and Trump's Washington DC parade ostensibly honoring the 250th birthday of the US Military. Veteran and aesthetic critiques proves very insightful and revealing.
Jun 18, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather start off with a little reflection on the street actions during Pride Month so far. This includes various offcial Pride maches and activities as well as unrelated yet akin protests in LA. And then, well, the big Pride Month break up of a same sex marriage at the federal level. Shade! They eschew the drama on the streets for drama on the page, reviewing and recommending some trans authored novels, starting with Heather's own Goodbye, Hello .Several other authors' recent works ar...
Jun 11, 2025•58 min
Jonny digs into the archive pulling an episode about queer ecology from Earth Day (April 22) 2024. Jonny and Heather are on the road and unable to make a new episode this week.
Jun 04, 2025•59 min
Jonny and Heatherreflect on the true meaning of Memorial Day and why it is a somber holiday of remembrance. They offer a queer and trans infused contemplation of the military in contrast to the Trump Administration's approach, and link their focus to the real purpose of Pride. In the back half of the show they take a deeper look at the Big "Beautiful" Bill that narrowly passed the House and appears to have stalled in the Senate (for now). The review several victories in courts and legislatures w...
May 28, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather lead off with recognition of the Agender Day of Visibility (Monday, May 19). They then turn to issues of local concern in Southern Illinois, including recent deadly tornadoes, current summer Pride plans, Governor Pritzker's visit, and Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton's endorsement by 50 Illinois LGBTQ leaders in her bid for the US Senate. In the back half of the show they discuss the Trump administration's attempts to distract public attention with outrage over "86 49" alleged thr...
May 21, 2025•59 min
Jonny and Craig give their recap on Mothers Day. They then turn to a hopeful analysis of the Catholic Church's new Pope, Pope Leo XIV. In the back half of the show, they turn to a discussion of how Trump's federal funding restrictions impact the services national support groups can provide, with a focus on Craig's recent struggles with FND Hope.
May 14, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather celebrate the official debut of Tesserae, Cabondale's premier queer+ choir and the incredible turnout of community support.They then turn from the audible to the visible to discuss the queer stories this week about photo manipulation. In the back half of the show they briefly review the rotten tomato of the Trump Administration's report and advisement policies for trans youth. They then share some stories of how queers are making small changes to blend in, contrasting those sur...
May 07, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather discuss disturbing trends in the US and UK to link neurodivergence like autism and ADHD with queer and trans identity. They explore some of the productive correlations and some of the ones more likely to lead to state-sponsored suppression. In the back half of the show they examine some examples of conflict within movements, resistance and/or LGBTQ+ rights--when they can be productive and when they aren't. The two halves come together in an acknowledgment that diversity can be ...
Apr 30, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather start off the show discussing Jonny's rececent recogntion with the SIU Sturgis Award for Community Service. They talk about local community activism and support, including turnout out at this weekend's "Hands Off" protest, again despite the terrible weather. They talk about the Illinois High School Association's support for trans athletes.The then shift to the Deat of Poe Francis and the likely connections to this event will have to Trump adminiistration machinations. In the ba...
Apr 23, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather discuss Heather's new novel, Goodbye Hello , an unconventional romance that begins with grief at a funeral. In the back half of the show, they examine new turns in the anti-trans rhetoric of TERFs and transphobes, turns meant to be rebuttals to arguments for trans righs. They offer rebuttals to the rebuttals and note the pervasive function of caricature as a tool of scapegoating embedded in all the antitrans rhetoric.
Apr 16, 2025•59 min
Jonny and Heather check in on getting through some intense midwest weather, complete with flooding and tornadoes. Despite these challenges, the "Queer Stories, Queer Spaces" oral history installation had a great opening reception in the Sharp Museum on the SIU campus. Also, despite the cancellation of protests in our area due to the weather, great numbers showed up to join the "Hands Off" event in Carbomdale. They discuss the incredible turnout for this protest around the country and in Europe, ...
Apr 09, 2025•59 min
Jonny and Heather are joined by Craig as we record this episode on Trans Day of Visibility. We discuss visibility, the good and the bad kind, as Craig conemplates the consequences of the Trump Admin challenging California's laws aganst teachers mandated to report any and all gender variance in students t their parents. The consequences of related grade school traumas stay with us our entire lives. We also lean into fighting deliberate efforts at trans erasure. In the back half of the show, Jonny...
Apr 02, 2025•59 min
Jonny interviews Casey and Jamie about their project, "Laveder House," a center for mutual support for the transgender communiy in Carbondale. In the process of sharing information about this resource, Jamie and Casey tell part of their story about living in Florida and why they left. In the back half of the show, Heather and Jonny discuss a new Transgender Spiritual group Heather will be hosting at the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship (CUF). They connect the dots on the costs of separatism and t...
Mar 26, 2025•58 min
Heather sits down with Morgan and Ryland of the Downstate Illinois Transgender Organization (DITO) to talk about the organization, Lavender House, and upcoming Transgender Day of Visibility events. In the back half of the show, Jonny sits down with Alex Socoro and Kelsey Maffett of the Rainbow Cafe to talk about upcoming TDOV events and how the organization is weathering the challenges of the current political climate.
Mar 19, 2025•59 min
Jonny and Heaher take a moment to recognize Heather's 20th Anniversary of being married to Kaye and reflect generally on Marriage Equality. They then lead off with some stories of success in the current less than supportive climate. In the back half of the show, they follow President Trump's transgenic mouse down a hole about the biology and neuroscience validating and explaining the existence of transgender people. They are not surprised that science is as much a target of the current regime as...
Mar 12, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather process the Great Ukraine White House Debacle from Friday. They note how the spectacle might be overshadowing other developmensts of unprecedented policy changes worthy of our LGBTQ+ vigilance. Oh yeah, and they note in passing that the Oscars happened ( yawn) . In the back half of the show they look at trends that give us hope as well as tools for using our consumer dollars to bring about change. Hint: don't buy a Tesla!
Mar 05, 2025•58 min
Jonny interviews Jordan Badgette about her upcoming performance, "Gender Knobs," an exploration of transgender experience with sound technology. Jordan's performance celebrates queer joy, and in the back half of the show Jonny and Heather lean into the queer joy of stories of resistance and pushback to the Trump Administration. Is the tide finally turning? Maybe. Maybe not. But we take joy in the myriad stories of challenges to the authoritarian turn.
Feb 26, 2025•59 min
Jonny sits down to interview Scott Johnson the director of Tesserae, Carbondale's premier Queer+ Choir. They discuss the origin, makeup, funding, and upcoming first concert of the project. In the back half of the show, Heather joins Jonny to discuss some particular Carbondale and Southern Illinois protests and pushback against the autocratice and phobic uprising, providing just a few highlights of this past week's attrocities.
Feb 19, 2025•58 min
Jonny welcomes Heather back with a brief discussion of the Superb Owl, which neither of them watched. They then turn to a brief chronicle of the anti-LGBTQ moves and rhetoric in the government and beyond this past week. In the back half of the show, they share two examples of the consequenses of this political climate before moving on to recommendations for acting up and pushing back, some of them literally from ACT UP.
Feb 12, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Craig discuss DEI. They start with a focus on the local, plugging artistic work in Carbondale with the upcoming Kleinau Theatre production of "Epiphanies," an adaptation of Flash Fiction by local writer, Epiphany Ferrell. They then turn to recent attacks by the Trump Administration on DEI and what that might mean for the university where they teach (SIU). They then discuss the Grammies and what this past weekend's music awards might teach us about the value of DEI. In the back half of ...
Feb 05, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather check in with each other after a rough first week of Trump Administration 2.0. They then explore how right wing pundits and trolls make really convoluted excuses to support their president, pairing the controversy over Elon Musk's "Roman" gesture and outrage over Bishop Budde's blessing at the Washington Cathedral. In the back half of the show, they discuss the conflict of policy mandates with agency restructuring and dismantling, resulting in inefficiency and higher government...
Jan 29, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Heather take a look at some of the anticipated executive orders of the incoming Trump administration, especially those targetting trans people. They contrast this with some of Biden's initial executive orders and other efforts of his administration to support LGBTQ folks. They then look at evidence in Congress and elsewhere that Trump's base is showing some serious cracks and divides. In the back half of the show, the discuss Tik Tok and the hypocrisy of Trump claiming to be its savior...
Jan 22, 2025•58 min
Jonny and Craig dig out from under snow and ice to share some contemplatioms on cultural, political, and environmental climates. In the front half of the show, they unpack their experience of the recent great ice storm that paralyzed Southern Illinois. They follow this with the hot times, politicially and environmentally, in LA right now. They turn to the death of Anita Bryant and why some might embrace a climate of celebration given her history. In the back half of the show, they discuss the sh...
Jan 15, 2025•59 min
Jonny compiles a montage show of interviews, stories, and topics from 2024, painting a picture of what the year lin LGBTQ concerns, particularly in Southern Illinois, sounded like.It is a sampling, incomplete to be sure, but illustrative of 2024 nonetheless.
Jan 01, 2025•59 min
Jonny and Heather put together a surprise Christmas show thanks to changes in their holiday travel plans. They put aside the news and politics, and current events in favor of some contemplation of Christmas for queer folks, including some shows and some music to enjoy. It's (mostly) holiday themed queer popular culture to enjoy on this day of joy. Find the joy where you can, friends!
Dec 25, 2024•59 min
Jonny and Heather start off the show by listening to a public statement made by local Carbondale City Councilwoman, Clare Killman, who has a proposal for Illinois to defend itself from federal assaults on bodily autonomy. They then compare the clarity and firmness of her response to Congressional Democrats who seem to lack a spine and are throwing LGB but particularly T under the bus. In the back half of the show they discuss access to healthcare and a revitalized interest in discussing predator...
Dec 18, 2024•58 min
