Ep. 346: LGBTQ+ History Month: From Sappho to Stonewall to Today | This Is Everything

October is LGBTQ+ History Month, and on this solo episode of This Is Everything, Zach takes you on a whirlwind tour through thousands of years of queer history — the heroes, the heartbreaks, and the hard-won victories most of us were never taught in school. Zach starts with a candid take on religion and where homophobia really comes from (spoiler: the word “homosexual” didn’t appear in an English Bible until 1946, and Jesus never said a word about same-sex love). From there, it’s a journey through ancient Greece and Rome, the poet Sappho of Lesbos, and the Two-Spirit traditions of Indigenous North America. Then the timeline gets real: England’s 1533 sodomy law and its colonial legacy, Oscar Wilde’s trial, Magnus Hirschfeld’s pioneering institute in Germany and its destruction by the Nazis, the pink triangle, Alan Turing’s conviction after helping win World War II, the Lavender Scare and Frank Kameny’s fight back, and Christine Jorgensen making international headlines. Zach honors the civil rights connection through Bayard Rustin, Pauli Murray, and James Baldwin, then moves through Compton’s Cafeteria, Stonewall, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the first Pride March, Harvey Milk, and the 1973 removal of homosexuality from the list of mental disorders. He also gets personal, sharing what it was like growing up during the AIDS crisis in Miami, losing friends on South Beach, waiting days for HIV test results, and why he and his husband Andrew celebrate the day they met instead of their wedding day. The episode closes with marriage equality’s long road — DOMA, Edie Windsor, Jim Obergefell — and today’s front line: transgender rights. Because we are a community of survivors, and these stories deserve to be told. Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.