LGBTQ&A

Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Roxane Gay. Cardi B. Emily St. John Mandel. Mindy Kaling. B.J. Novak. Malala. Taylor Swift. Khaled Hosseini. Jon Foreman Angela Davis. Judith Butler. Laverne Cox.

This is just a short list of people I would love the chance to interview. From authors to feminists to politicians to musicians, these people impress and fascinate me and I would jump at the chance to talk to them any day, any time.

I think that all of us have a list of those people. Those bands or artists or writers or celebrities that we would (almost) kill to talk to. Pretty much all of us will never get that chance, which is exactly why I am so jealous of Jeffrey Masters. Masters hosts LGBTQ&A, “an interview podcast documenting modern queer and trans history.”

I really love getting to meet authors I’ve been reading for twelve years. I like meeting people I look up to and local heroes. It’s a really nice side effect of the podcast that I get to have forty-five minutes with people I look up to and they have to answer everything I want.

Masters recognized the need for queer podcasts early on.

I had been podcasting, and nobody was really interviewing LGBTQ people in in-depth ways and in one place.

Even Masters was surprised that he had found a hole in the vast sea that is podcasts, but once he recognized it, he started to wonder if he could fill in the gap.

While there was not a great place to find these interviews, the interviews themselves were also lacking in Masters’ eyes.

Straight interviewers tend to focus on the transition and they tend to focus on coming out stories, even if that’s the least interesting part of our lives. So I really saw that there was a hole in the market.

Masters has put together close to one-hundred episodes, including interviews with Jeffrey Marsh, Mara Wilson, Gaby Dunn, Shakina Nayfack, Keiyan Lonsdale, and Greg Berlanti, saying he chooses his guests with the goal of representing all the different groups within the LGBTQ+ community.

When I’m looking to book people, I really want a diversity of guests. Diversity of gender, race, sexuality, as well as diversity of age and location. I look for any kind of diversity possible.

Masters focuses on his interviewees as whole people, working to push beyond their queerness to celebrate their successes, work, struggles, and experience to paint a full picture of their lives.

I love getting to meet people and I love getting to tell their stories, especially in a long-term setting when we live in the world of Twitter.

These stories and the openness that Masters brings into the podcast makes LGBTQ&A really accessible as well as informative, so if you’ve been looking for your LBGTQ+ fix or are just wanting to listen to some fascinating interviews, this is the podcast for you.

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