According to Statista, 59% of people aged 12-34 and 55% of people aged 35-55 listen to podcasts on a monthly basis. In fact, there’s a good chance that as you’re reading this, you’re listening to a podcast in the background.
While there are several popular LGBTQ+-focused podcasts out there, like Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness and Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, there are plenty of other amazing podcasts that deserve highlighting as well. Check out our list of queer and trans-led podcasts that you should add to your rotation.
Cruising: A Queer Documentary Podcast
We’ve featured Cruising before and for good reason. In 2021, Sarah Gabrielli, Rachel Karp, and Jen McGinity hopped in a Honda SUV for a road trip to visit and document the remaining lesbian bars in the country. In season one, the team visited 25 lesbian bars, speaking with staff and patrons, digging into the history, and looking toward the future of these spaces for queer women. Season two explores the newest bars that have opened since the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Slayerfest 98 is described as “A Queer Latinx Buffy the Vampire Slayer Podcast that occasionally covers Marvel stuff,” the podcast actually tackles queer pop culture better than most. Host Ian Carlos Crawford delves deep into the Buffyverse and other genre shows like Agatha All Along and X-Men ‘97, with a lineup of pop culture critics, journalists, and actors and writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and more. Carlos Crawford also co-hosts a queer sex-positive podcast with Zachary Patton Garcia called My Nudie Judy.
Based in Toronto, the Queer Collective is a nonprofit dedicated to positive LGBTQ+ representation and supporting queer and trans artists. The organization’s podcast is hosted by founders and couple Karbon and Emily, who tackle LGBTQ+-related topics like being a trans woman in a men’s prison, seeking asylum for being LGBTQ+, coming out at work, and more.
This podcast “about evil and complicated queers in history” is hosted by duo Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. Lemmey and Miller explore the lives of historical figures like Franco Zeffirelli, Truman Capote and Violette Morris in this information-packed podcast. There’s even a book out now inspired by the podcast, “Bad Gays: A Homosexual History.”
“Most movies are gay. We’ll prove it,” is the tagline for the Subtextual podcast, hosted by Lizzie Guitreau and Samantha De La Fuente. Guitreau and De La Fuente examine movies through a queer lens, looking at subtextual elements that most viewers might miss in films like Practical Magic, Miss Congeniality, and Grease. Gone are the days when filmgoers had to search for scraps of queer subtext in mainstream movies, but subtext remains an important part of queer film criticism today.
Hosted by K Anderson, Lost Spaces features “lost queer venues and the impact they had on the people who drank, danced, and loved within them.” Anderson is joined weekly by special guests to share their experiences with queer spaces in the past and how those spaces helped shape their lives. From discovering oneself at a small-town gay bar to Emo Gay Nights in Sydney, Australia, listeners will get a dose of history, heartache, and humor.
TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones
Translash Media founder and and CEO Imara Jones is also the host of the official TransLash Podcast. On the pod, Jones and her guests cover critical trans-focused issues like how to prepare for the incoming Trump administration, environmental justice through a trans lens, and traveling while trans.
Comedian Roz Hernandez gets spooky in this humorous paranormal podcast produced by the Exactly Right podcast network. Joined by celebrity guests like Peppermint and Joel Kim Booster, Hernandez explores “ghost stories, psychic experiences, and all things that go BUMP in the night” with a serious side of laughs.
On The Queer Family Podcast, queer mom and host Jaimie Kelton asks the question, “What’s it like to live as an LGBTQ family in a world built for the straights?” The podcast celebrates LGBTQ+ families, whose stories and experiences aren’t often told. From sperm donation to co-parenting, C-sections, and fostering, the Queer Family Podcast shines a light on the experiences of queer and trans parents across the country.
Have a favorite LGBTQ+ focused podcast you want us to know about? Email us at newsisout@localmedia.org.