For episode 8 I spoke to Shaun Cole who is a fashion historian, curator and writer based at the London College of Fashion.

We spoke about whether gay fashion was just about the ‘global gay’? Why queer communities have had such close ties with fashion. How gender and sexuality has been inspiring and informing fashion. How androgyny is perceived and represented within the fashion world, to name just a few of the topics we explore together.

The opening music is Tears On The Road by Jaya Prime.

Songs used in this podcast are;

• Under Pressure by Queen
• I Want To Break Free by Queen
• I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred
• Fashion by David Bowie
• Macho Man by The Village People
• Another 80’s extended remix by Authist Amp Dub One by Bangguru

The post Shaun Cole Expert Fashionista appeared first on As I Was Saying.

At the end of July 2015, I spoke to Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman, two legends in the international queer community about the book they co-edited together, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation.

The pieces in this anthology are sometimes provocative, sometimes humorous, always insightful, radical. It is bravely open to vulnerability and tenderness as well as strength.

I asked the co-editors lots of questions: which piece in the book resounded most deeply?  If to be trans necessarily means one has to be an outlaw? And we spoke in detail about the complexities that exist within the trans community.

The opening music is Tears On The Road by Jaya Prime.

Songs used in this podcast were:

• Nothing by Tommy Jacob
• Amsterdam by Lasers

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In November 2014, Buck Angel was in Australia and I saw him speak at the Trans Body Politic Forum in Melbourne. We meet the next day in a typical loud Melbourne Coffee shop to record this interview.

Buck Angel was assigned female at birth and conquered a lifetime of adversity to undergo his transformation and become the healthy, happy, self-confident man he is today.

Buck created the first FTM adult website in 2003 and became the first FTM adult entertainer and film producer. In 2007, Buck made history again as the first transsexual man to ever win the AVN Transsexual Performer of the Year award (the academy awards of the adult industry).

We spoke Sex, Politics and Identity, and so much more.

The opening music is Tears On The Road by Jaya Prime.

Songs used in this podcast were:

• Transfusion by Anitek
• RSPN by Blank & Kytt
• CRUZIN by Blank & Kytt
• Let’s talk about sex by Salt N’ Pepper

The post Buck Angel: Sex, Politics & Identity appeared first on As I Was Saying.

Tawhanga Nopera is from New Zealand and he integrates his knowledge of the Maori school of artistic weaving with performance and digital art paradigms. In doing so, Tawhanga aims to create works that critique hegemonic discourses, destabilise pervasive stereotypes and ultimately empower Maori notions of identity. Tawhanga’s creative practice affirms Indigenous ways of being, to expose both the positive and negative impacts of globalisation.

According to Tawhanga, a self identified Trans* person, Trans-people are often perceived as tricksters; people who hide parts of their lives away, to fit socially acceptable norms. His research flips perceptions and instead argues that acceptable norms embrace trickstery behaviours; rules of propriety intended to hide difficult social realities. Tawhanga believes that a trans perspective both blends and contours context; it allows fluid ways to interpret engagements. Lana Woolf spoke to Tawhanga about his trans journey.

The opening music is Tears On The Road by Jaya Prime.

Songs used in this podcast were:

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In this episode I talk to the very accomplished Yasmin Tambiah.

Yasmin is a Sri Lankan born lesbian who has been educated in the United States and London, held academic positions in Sri Lanka, India and Australia and she works on issues concerning gender, law and sexuality in postcolonial contexts.

I spoke to Yasmin about Sinister Wisdom: Lesbians and Exile,  a multicultural lesbian literary and arts journal. I got to ask questions about her life, about the intersections of racism, sexism and homophobia, and how she see a path forward.

The opening music is Tears On The Road by Jaya Prime.

Songs used in this podcast were:

• Olafur Arnalds, Happiness Does Not Wait
• Olafur Arnalds, Near Light
• Olafur Arnalds, Only the Winds
• Ankah, Your Path

The post Yasmin Tambiah: Lesbians & Exile appeared first on As I Was Saying.

Welcome to episode three! In this episode I talk to Lambda Award winning writer and editor and the co-founder of the Lesbian Her-story Archives  Joan Nestle.

Joan identifies as a queer femme, and she sees her work of archiving history as critical to her identity as “a woman, as a lesbian, and as a Jew.”

I spoke to Joan as an International Women’s Day special interview for JOY 94.9 and we spoke about all sorts of engaging things, including International Women’s Day, The Lesbian Herstory Archives, about politics being a moment in communal history. What it means to be working class, and how socialism in now a dirty word.

Here are links to some of the organisations we mentioned in the podcast:

• Gay Academics Union 
• Women’s Liberation Front
• Women in Black

The opening music is Tears On The Road by Jaya Prime.

Songs used in this podcast were:

• Awaken by Joel McKerrow and the Mysterious Few
• Running Waters by Jason Shaw
• Crystal Life by Ketsa
• I am women by Helen Reddy

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Lana called Sunny just before he traveled half way around the globe from Canada to visit Melbourne, Australia for the Midsumma Festival.

They talk all things queer including, the intersections of performance and queer culture, alcohol as an access issue, queer discrimination, and racism and transphobia, intentional relationships and Sunny’s spectacular show, Transgender Seeking.

The opening music is Tears On The Road by Jaya Prime.

Songs used in this podcast were:

• Broke for Free by Night Owl
• Parisian by Kevin MacLeod
• Stand by your Trans by Elisha Lim and Rae Spoon

The post Sunny Drake: Transgender Seeking appeared first on As I Was Saying.

Edi Donald and the Transients are a six piece band from Alice Springs, which formed in late 2013 to bring the songs from Edi’s EP The Endless Shores of the Inland Sea to the stage. With a wild array of influences from a lashing of operatic theatricality to delicately woven electronic production, acoustic world roots, to gritty alternative influences, the music of Edi Donald and the Transients carries a trans-genre cinematic epic-ness.

Edi’s stunningly emotive voice and vivid lyricism are the backbone of the music they have produced. Their show at Midsumma was a gripping and detailed audio visual performance, showcasing layered and complex songs set against visual projections of the macro and micro of abstracted landscape and rust. The work approaches ideas of gender identity, isolation and inclusion, questions of privilege and social responsibility all reflected in the unfathomable enormity of the desert.

JOY’s Lana Woolf went along to see Edi Donald and the Transients and got Edi and Svetlana into the studio for a chat about how their work conveys ideas of gender, sexuality, race, identity and land.

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