Sylvester by Michael Zagaris
via Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 2.0

Join Dene and Sam in the Cheap Seats for one last time as we travel to San Francisco for a spoken-word tribute to Sylvester, the Queen of Disco.

Sylvester was an early founder of the black, cross-dressing and trans women group ‘The Discuotays’. Later, he joined the drag troupe ‘The Cockettes’ and went on to enjoy a successful solo singing career with the disco-hit (and JOY anthem!) ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’ in 1978.  Sylvester died in 1988 at the age of 41.

In 2013 the San Francisco Public Library hosted a night of poetry and readings about disco, dance and love in tribute to Sylvester, marking the 25th anniversary of his death.  Our host is Oakland poet Marvin K White, and he is joined by Jaime Cortez, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano and Joel Barraquiel Tan, who is better known as Sister Baba Ganesh of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

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‘Downtown Cleveland Ohio’
Image by Chris Gent via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats in Cleveland, Ohio for a panel discussion on transgender identity and rights.

Hosted by The City Club of Cleveland, the panel is moderated by Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Connie Shultz. The panel features:

• Susan J. Becker, Professor of Law Emerita, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University;
• Henry Ng, M.D., MPH, FAACP, FACP, President, Gay and Lesbian Medical Association; Clinical Director, PRIDE Clinic; Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine;
• Stacey Parsons, Transgender Activist; Board Vice President, Margie’s Hope; Facilitator, TransFamily Support Group; and
• Darius Stubbs, Teaching Artist, Cleveland Public Theatre.

The post Transgender in Cleveland appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by Dennis Hill via Creative Commons

Dene is back in the Cheap Seats for a night of queer poetry.  Brought to us by Button Poetry, the performers explore autobiographical themes of love and attraction and stories of gender and misgendering.  There is light and shade, some laughs and some strong language, and some darker moments shared.

The performers and poems featured are:

• Theresa Davis – Like, Like
• Denice Froham – Dear straight people
• Lauren Zuniga – Confessions of an uneducated queer
• Ethan Smith – A letter to the girl I used to be
• Ollie Schiminkey – Boobs
• Stacey Waite – Newark International Airport
• Stacey Waite – The kind of man I am at the DMV
• Wyatt Fleckenstein – Labels

The post Queer poetry appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Armistead Maupin and husband Christopher Turner. Image by Angela George via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats at the San Francisco Public Library for a conversation with Armistead Maupin.

KM Soehnlein interviews Armistead Maupin about “Tales of the City” which, for almost four decades, has blazed its own trail through popular culture—from a groundbreaking San Francisco Chronicle newspaper serial to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world.

The first of nine novels about the denizens of the apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco, it is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that changed forever the way we live.

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Image by Andres Musta via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats for a human rights panel discussion that explores the ideological struggle between autocracy and democracy in Asia and the Middle East.

The discussion is hosted by Human Rights First and examines the experience in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hungary and China.

The panel is moderated by Scott Carpenter and the panellists are:

• Mohammad A. Tabaar – Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University
• Caryle Murphy – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of ‘Passion for Islam’ and ‘A Kingdom’s Future: Saudi Arabia Through the Eyes of Its Twentysomethings’
• Tamas Bodoky – Editor-in-Chief of Atlatszo.hu; author, Túlkapások (Hungary), and
• Zachary Abuza – Professor of Political Science, Simmons College.

The post Human rights in Asia and the Middle East appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Sam Rush

Dene is back in the Cheap Seats for the National Poetry Slam 2015 in Oakland California. Presented by Button Poetry, the event features:

• Melissa Lozada-Olivia – Like Totally Whatever
• Olivia Fantini – On Standardized Testing
• Pages Matam – On Learning America’s English
• Patrick Roche – The Perfect Panic Attack
• Rachel Wiley – Glory in Two Parts
• Sabrina Benaim – First Date
• Sam Rush – Neverland

The post Poetry slam, thank you ma’am! appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by Very Quiet via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats in Oakland California at the 26th Annual National Poetry Slam, a competition event where poets performance original work to a live audience.

Presented by Button Poetry, the event features:

• Akeemjamal Rollins – In response
• Christopher Stanly – Fat love
• Gabriel Ramirez – On realising I am black
• J Theo – Twin Tongue
• Jesse Parent – Hooked Cross
• Joel Francis – Interchangeable Parts
• Jonathan Mendoza – Brown Boy, White Boy

The post Poetry Slam sampler appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Dene is back in the Cheap Seats for a performance by Canadian trans artists Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon, performing their show “Gender Failure”.  The performance explores and exposes the pair’s failed attempts at fitting into the gender binary — and ultimately how the gender binary doesn’t add up.

The post Gender Failure appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by Calgary Reviews via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats as we listen to ‘No Curry, No Rice’, a panel discussion that looks at sexual appetites, ethnic stereotypes, and racism in our LGBTIQ communities. It explores the question of the boundary between personal preference and racism, from a male perspective.

The discussion is brought to us by the Australian LGBTIQ Multicultural Council and featured as part of the 2015 Midwinta Festival in Melbourne.

The post No curry, no rice appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image of Eileen Myles
by David Shankbone via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats for American poet and writer Eileen Myles reading her poetry to a live audience at the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Eileen has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, plays and performance pieces over the last three decades.  Her works are known for being queer, funny, feminist and provocative.

Myles opens with poetry new and old, but dedicates much of the time for an extended reading of her dog memoir, Afterglow, inspired by her now-late companion Rosie.

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Ingrid Nilsen at VidCon 2015
Image by Genevieve Collins via Creative Commons.

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats for a panel discussion about sexual orientation on YouTube.  We are in Anaheim California for VidCon 2015, an annual conference for people who love online video.

The panel explores themes such as growing up LGBTQ, identification and sexual orientation, coming out and being a role model on social media.  It is moderated by Michael Buckley and includes some of  YouTube’s most popular content creators:

• Tyler Oakley
• Ingrid Nilsen
• Hannah Hart
• Miles Jai
• R.J. Aguiar
• Ello Steph

The post Sexual Orientation on YouTube appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Sam Sax

Joy Young

The post Poetry by Sam Sax & Joy Young appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Lori Lindsey, United States Women’s National Soccer Team

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats as we travel to the United States for a panel discussion on the state and representation of LGBT people and issues in Sports and Popular Media.

The panel was part of a conference hosted in late 2013 by the Institute of Sports, Media and Society.  The Institute is based at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.

The panellists are:

• Howard Bragman, a public relations practitioner who has looked after a number of LGBT celebrities and sports clients
• John Branch, a sports reporter for the New York Times, and
• Kate Fagan is a writer for ESPN, a former basketball player and author of the book ‘The Reappearing Act: Coming out as Gay on a College Basketball Team Led by Born-Again Christians’.

The panel is moderated by Shayna Naomi Krochmal, a long-time contributing editor for OUT Magazine.

The post LGBT Representation in Sports Media appeared first on Cheap Seats.

‘Bengaluru Pride’ by Vinayak Das via Creative Commons

Join Dene as we travel to Mumbai for front row seats at a panel discussion on building LGBT alliances in India.  We are at the Second Indian LGBT Youth Leadership Summit presented in 2015 by MINGLE, the Mission for Indian Gay & Lesbian Empowerment.

Our panelists are:

• Nisaba Godrej, Executive Director, Godrej Consumer Products Limited.  Godrej Consumer Products Limited is the largest home-grown home and personal care company in India
• Meera Sandal, the then Leader of the Aam Aadmi Party
• Ashok Row Kavi, Founding leader of Humsafar Trust, a non-government organisation that promotes LGBT rights.  Humsafar Trust is one of the largest and most active of such organisations in India.

The panel is moderated by Udayan Dhar who is a project leader at MINGLE and the diversity manager at Godrej Industries Ltd.

The post Building LGBT Alliances in India appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Queenie Bon Bon

Dene is back in the Cheap Seats, this time at a spoken-word performance by Queenie Bon Bon as part of the 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival.

In “Power Up”, Queenie talks from her true-lived experience as a sex worker and professional stripper, exploring the mundane and the absurd.  She shares personal stories of her time living and working in New York, London and Australia.  Queenie’s stories include sex and drug references.

The post Queenie Bon Bon presents ‘Power Up’ appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Eric Gitari

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats as we listen to human rights lawyer and activist Eric Gitari speak about LGBT rights in Kenya.

Eric is co-founder of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. His work focuses on immigration law, refugees and asylum seekers, public litigation, and civil liberties.

The event is brought to us by Human Rights First and the Global Justice Ministry and focusses on the efforts to repeal the criminalization laws affecting LGBT people living in Kenya.

The post LGBT Rights in Kenya appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Women’s Army Corp members, 1943

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Image by Very Quiet via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats for the NSW 2014 state finals in the lead up to the Australian Poetry Slam – the largest spoken-word program in the Southern hemisphere.

The poets perform with passion about topics and autobiographical themes close to their hearts. Topics range from the amusing, to the challenging and the confronting.

Take your seats, please.

The post Poetry Slam: NSW Finals appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by Paul Hudson via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats for the 2015 Women of the World Poetry Slam Finals.

Held in early 2015 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, we hear women performing poetry with passion and covering themes including feminism, empowerment, race, gender – and even shaving.

Women of the World is a Poetry Slam Inc event.

Take your seats, please.

The post Poetry Slam: Women of the World Finals 2015 appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by Joe Haupt via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats we as go back in time to 1958 to listen to what is believed to be the first ever radio broadcast to openly discuss homosexuality in the United States.

The compare is Elsa Knight Thompson and the panellists are:

• Hal Call, the editor of the Mattachine Society’s newsletter, the Mattachine Review
• Blanche Baker, a psychologist noted for her then-rarely-shared belief that homosexuality was not an abnormality nor an illness, and
• Leah Gailey, the mother of a gay man.

This recording is from the Pacifica Radio Archives

The post The homosexual in 1958 society appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by Ben Ostrowsky via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats for part two of a two-part panel discussion presented by the Australian Equality Party that asks the question ‘Are we over the rainbow?”

The panel for the lively discussion held in July 2015 in Melbourne includes:

• Tim Wilson, Australian Human Rights Commissioner
• Noel Tovey, Actor, Director and Indigenous LGBTI activist
• Christine Forster, Councillor, City of Sydney
• Jason Tuazon-McCheyne, Leader, Australian Equality Party
• Noel Tovey AM, Dancer, Actor, Director and Indigenous LGBTI Activist
• Rodney Croome AM, National Convenor, Australian Marriage Equality
• Sally Goldner, Executive Director, Transgender Victoria, Treasurer of Bisexual Alliance Victoria
• Senthorun Raj, Writer, Academic and LGBTI Advocate
• Wilhelmina Stracke, Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC)
• Lars Einar Engström, Psychologist, Lecturer, Senior Partner, Ed Colby AB (Sweden)

Dr Lindy Edwards, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Canberra chairs the panel.

The post Are we over the rainbow? Part 2 appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by Garry Knight via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats for part one of a two-part panel discussion presented by the Australian Equality Party that asks the question ‘Are we over the rainbow?”

The panel for the lively discussion held in July 2015 in Melbourne includes:

• Tim Wilson, Australian Human Rights Commissioner
• Noel Tovey, Actor, Director and Indigenous LGBTI activist
• Christine Forster, Councillor, City of Sydney
• Jason Tuazon-McCheyne, Leader, Australian Equality Party
• Noel Tovey AM, Dancer, Actor, Director and Indigenous LGBTI Activist
• Rodney Croome AM, National Convenor, Australian Marriage Equality
• Sally Goldner, Executive Director, Transgender Victoria, Treasurer of Bisexual Alliance Victoria
• Senthorun Raj, Writer, Academic and LGBTI Advocate
• Wilhelmina Stracke, Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC)
• Lars Einar Engström, Psychologist, Lecturer, Senior Partner, Ed Colby AB (Sweden)

Dr Lindy Edwards, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Canberra chairs the panel.

The post Are we over the rainbow? Part 1 appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by hollyanne via Creative Commons

Dene is back in the Cheap Seats for part two of panel discussion from Rainbow Jews, the United Kingdom’s first ever LGBT history project.

It is part two of an ‘intergenerational’ conversation with eight Jewish people sharing stories about their Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender lives in Britain the 1950s and today.

This podcast captures the voices and experiences of the younger generation of LGBT Jews: A lesbian Yoga teacher, a games entrepreneur, a queer film student and a young professional gay man and socialite.

This recording is a University of Portsmouth Production produced by Searle Kochberg and directed by Richard Hackett.

The post Rainbow Jews: Now & Then, Part 2 appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Image by Tamara Craiu via Creative Commons

Join Dene in the Cheap Seats for a panel discussion from Rainbow Jews, the United Kingdom’s first ever LGBT history project.

It is part one of a two-part ‘intergenerational’ conversation with eight Jewish people sharing stories about their Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender lives in Britain from the 1950s to today.

This podcast captures the voices and experiences of the pioneering generation of LGBT Jews: A Holocaust survivor, a lesbian rabbi, a late bloomer, and the president of the UK’s longest running Jewish LGBT group.

This recording is a University of Portsmouth Production produced by Searle Kochberg and directed by Richard Hackett.

The post Rainbow Jews: Now & Then, Part 1 appeared first on Cheap Seats.

The panel is part of the Human Rights Summit hosted by Human Rights First in 2013 and features:

• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – U.S. Representative for Florida’s 27th congressional district
• Jonathan Capehart – Opinion writer and member of The Washington Post editorial board, MSNBC contributor
• Masha Gessen – Russian Journalist, Author and Activist
• Kaspar’s Zalitis – Latvian LGBT activist and Board Member of LGBT NGO Mozaika, and
• Jovanka Todorovic – Labris Lesbian Human Rights Organziation (Serbia).

The post LGBT Rights in Cuba, Russia, Latvia & Serbia appeared first on Cheap Seats.

Tyler Oakley

Summer in the City is the UK’s largest YouTube convention.  Each year it brings together YouTube creators and fans in a celebration of online video and the community that surrounds it.

In this podcast, we are in the Cheap Seats for a panel discussion from the 2014 event about LGBTQ community representation on YouTube.

The panel features YouTube sensation Tyler Oakley, as well as vloggers from the United Kingdom and the United States, including:

• Jazza
• The Real Alex Bertie
• Rose and Rosie
• Gary C
• David Levitz

The post LGBTQ on YouTube, with Tyler Oakley appeared first on Cheap Seats.